With the modern smartphone not only are our text messages and phone contacts potentially exposed but often our email and social media accounts and sometimes even bank details or our current location can be accessed without us realising.
Protecting yourself however doesn't have to be difficult. In fact the most common and dangerous problem is your mobile being physically stolen. So use some common sense, treat it like your wallet, don't leave it unattended in a place you don't trust!
Additionally there are applications, available for all smart phones, that offer users the ability to send an sms message to their phone to trigger a factory reset, track the phone's location or take photo's with the phone to try and catch a thief.
The next most common technique is social engineering. This can be used to achieve a number of ends (such as financial gain or acquiring confidential personal information). These tricks can take a number of forms, such as the spam text messages you receive or websites, trying to mimic a familiar, trusted, site.
As when we were children and our parents told us not to talk to strangers, do not reply to messages that you don't know who sent it or that look suspicious. With websites a similar common sense approach is useful, check the URL for anything suspicious, (is it Australian? should it end with .au? for instance) and look for the padlock symbol in your status bar to check if it is a secured connection.
Thirdly, do not install applications from non-market or non-app store sources, unless you can verify that it is trustworthy.
While both the Apple app store vetting and Google market community and bouncer do an excellent job of quality control, they are not foolproof, there have been some instances of apps, masquerading as other applications, these instance are generally detected quickly and eradicated but it is a word of warning to pay attention to the permissions that you are granting when you install an application.
Potentially the next most critical security concern is outdated software. Software that is out of date can contain known vulnerabilities that hackers or malicious software can take advantage of these without your knowledge or permission. Keeping your software updated minimises the risk of this occurring. Applications such as your chosen browser, email app and your phone's operating system are of critical importance.
In many cases a portion of common sense goes a long way in ensuring you are not exposed. following that some diligence goes a long way and the last few percent is knowledge.
Hopefully this has helped address concerns of how to keep your phone and personal information safe. As you can see it isn't particularly difficult to keep yourself safe.
The smartphone industry learnt a lot from the more mature world of personal computing. It isn't such a sinister dark world out there, but be warned and act responsibly with how you use your phone!
Can be dangerous
This article in part has been written as there have been missionaries in foreign parts who have been tapped-into and that has created serious situations. Very recently, in one such country, a missionary sent an innocent, yet religiously political inappropriate wording, in a text message and it was some quick thinking on the part of the mission leader that their situation wasn't compromised.
This is serious business for many Christians in a world where persecution for faith in Jesus is a dangerous and possibly life threatening occurrence. In the British Parliament late last year the House of Commons was greatly alarmed to hear that every 11 minutes, a Christian today is murdered for their belief in Jesus. (au.christiantoday.com)
Sam Gillespie is a graduate Composition student and a computer programmer doing his Honours year based in Sydney. Sam has composed a number of works.
Sam Gillespie previous articles may be viewed www.pressserviceinternational.org/sam-gillespie.html