Mobile Safety
Little neat fact. Did you know that smart phone in your pocket has more processing power than what NASA had to work with when we first sent a man to the moon? Its true!
We walk around with extremely powerful mini computers. In fact, chances are you use your home computer less and less and rely on your cellphone more. You pay your bills, shop online, browse the internet and post to social media. Since you do everything your computer can do on your phone, do you protect it the same way? Ever consider having anti-virus software on your phone? Probably not and that is okay because it is not a typical thought to have. Your phone is susceptible to just as many exploits as a computer can (yes even your iPhone is not 100% secure). The good news is that just like PCs, there are plenty of anti-virus/malware vendors out there that have software dedicated for your phone. Even better, they have some free versions as well, any antivirus is better than none right?
Note: Nothing is truly free in this world so remember, they may be collecting information instead or installing bloatware.
So cool, you got a bit of endpoint security on your cellphone, now what? Well just what exactly are you being protected from? Like I mentioned your device can still get some of the typical viruses that computers get. However, the threat of these exploits is greatly enhanced if you have “jail broken” your phone which essentially makes it easier for a malicious attacker to get what they want from you. A big thing mobile users are at risk for are called banking trojans. These tend to pretend to be legitimate applications copying your financial institution or compromising the apps entirely so that they can steal your information, make unauthorized transactions, or simply install ransomware on your phone.
So how does your phone get compromised?
Aside from a bad guy having physical access to your device, its pretty much the same thing as a computer. You browse to a bad website or fall for a phishing email if you use mobile email. BUT! There is one more thing you must be aware of and it’s something that malicious actors use more and more every day. Text messages. Its tough as it is to figure out if an email is safe or not now a days but its even harder with text messages. Smishing (SMS + Phishing) is just like phishing but through a text message. They use the same social engineering tactics. Treat these the way you would a phishing email, ignore and delete if you are unsure about it.
One last thing, treat your phone the way you should your laptop. When traveling around or visiting a coffee shop, try to avoid using public Wi-Fi spots as much as possible. Having proper endpoint security on your phone doesn’t do you any good if the bad guy can just monitor your traffic and steal your information that way.