Are you using some security on your smartphone? Password? Encryption?

The topic of smartphone security or securing one’s devices has been at the forefront of a lot of conversation both at home and at the office. It’s been in the media and anywhere else. It remains a big security threat and most people don’t even realise the impact. The impact is straightforward: You lose your unprotected device, someone finds it and has access to your entire digital life at their fingertips.

Which means they have access to names, phone numbers, date of birth of contacts on the device, text messages, emails, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Bank apps in some instances can make purchases with your smartphone, pictures, videos, etc. Is this sinking in with you? So why didn’t you set a password and had the encryption turned on? I can answer this actually; We are lazy and we find this cumbersome to have to input a silly thing like a password on a phone you always have. Sounds familiar right?

But now you’ve lost your phone and someone has access to all of your stuff. In the wrong hands, this can create a problem for you… So what should one retain from this? Setup a password, a pattern, a pin, encrypt the device.

On a different note to this, if you’ll be travelling in the United States, I highly recommend that before you even think of getting to the airport to travel that you setup a secondary device you can take with you which will have minimal information and is setup with secondary accounts that you can freely give the information about to the customs official if they ask for them. Can’t setup a secondary device for that purpose? Wipe the one you have and set it up ahead of time with secondary accounts. Once you’re in the United States, setup the device back with your needed accounts.

Pretty simple, YES, it’s highly inconvenient because a lot find it easier to have no passwords setup for anything and will re-use the same password for everything just out sheer laziness by not wanting to remember multiple passwords for all the different services. We could take this a step further and use the various 2-factor authentication systems in place that can make it even harder to gain access to certain online accounts you have on your device.

In the end, you’ll have a better grasp at your own digital security and it may help to deter someone from attempting to access your device.