Smart ways to protect your cellphone from attack

If you’re one of the many Kenyans who own a smartphone, then you probably use it every day.

In addition to making calls and sending texts, you might use it for photography, posting to social media, browsing the Internet and, for some people, shopping. It’s these activities that can put your privacy most at risk.

Cyber experts say the rapid adoption of smartphones into daily life — especially for shopping and banking, which requires the exchange of payment information — leaves many people vulnerable to financial attacks.

Protecting yourself doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming, but you should consider the following steps.

When browsing or shopping on your phone (or computer), always look for “https” in the url instead of “http.” That indicates an added level of security, which should always appear before exchanging any private information, like credit card numbers, online.

Add a password or security feature to your phone. It might be a pain to type a number into your phone each time you want to use it, but losing your phone without that protection could lead to a far greater headache. This is a smart move should your phone be lost or stolen.

It’s no secret that many people often reuse the same passwords for multiple sites, which can leave them vulnerable to hacking if one site gets broken into.

Some passwords, like ones based on your birthday or mother’s maiden name, are easy to figure out.

Certain software and apps, including Find My iPhone and Find My Phone for Android, make it easy to find your phone if you lose it.

Some programs, like Norton Mobile Security, also offer the option of locking and wiping your phone remotely if necessary.

Some smartphones are set up to automatically connect with available Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth devices.

Disabling this option will prevent your phone from connecting and transmitting data without you realising it.

TRUST YOUR GUT

Treat email and social media requests from strangers suspiciously. Criminals might send friend requests to people they don’t know to gather information about them.

While most people will ignore or reject the request, a small portion will accept, and those are the people who criminals target. Always trust your gut feeling.

Be a savvy shopper. It’s not wrong to shop from your phone, but you should be extra careful with vendors you aren’t familiar with, especially if the store initiated contact through an email, text message or social media site.

You can always run a Web search on the company first to check for any complaints.

Check privacy settings on apps. Some apps request a lot of information from you, including your location and passwords or access to other apps or your text messages. If they don’t need all of that information, then deny it access.

Beware the package tracking scam. If you’re ordering a lot of packages online, you might not be too surprised to receive an email from what looks like a major supplier about a package that it couldn’t deliver.

But take a closer look, and you might notice that the email isn’t actually from the domain name of that supplier. It’s a common scam, and typically works by getting the recipient to click on a fraudulent link that then collects personal information. Don’t click on it.

Avoid fraudulent Wi-Fi networks. A fraudster sets up a Wi-Fi network that has a similar name to the coffee shop he’s sitting in, but instead of simply providing free Wi-Fi, he’s using the signal to collect information from the people around him who log onto the network.

For example, a coffee shop user could use the shared Wi-Fi to log into his or her bank, and the fraudster could potentially access that banking information.

Sam Wambugu is a monitoring and evaluation specialist; [email protected]