Smartphones are becoming dangerous. Although they make our lives easier, they are an open license to thieves.
Why?
Your smartphone triples as your phone, wallet and computer and contains easily accessible information such as Email accounts, contact lists, private contacts, social networking profiles with their usernames and passwords, online banking, online shopping – and more, opening you to all kinds of risk.
According to a CNN Money report, security attacks on smartphones reached an all time high in 2010. And if you own a Google Android smartphone or any smartphone that runs Java-based applications, your security risk increased 45%.
If you use your smartphone for online banking, it’s somewhat safe to use the apps created for your specific bank. But that doesn’t mean that your 100% hacker free.
The hacker can still have your username and password sent to their server. While this is not as common, it’s still a safety measure to consider when banking through your smartphone.
If you access your Facebook, Twitter or other social networking sites from your smartphone, you stand a chance for your smartphone to act as a portal to your profiles and emails, thereby giving the hacker all kinds of personal information.
If you do make a lot of transactions on your phone and/or store a great deal of private account information on your smartphone, it’s a good idea to invest in an anti-virus/identity theft protection program with your bank or carrier service. Don’t think because your smartphone is password protected that your phone cannot be hacked into. Just take a look on You Tube that shows how hackers invade your privacy.
Be cautious, log in and out of accounts, and don’t make large and many transactions on your smartphone. And if your smartphone is stolen, youridentity is still at risk but taking safety precautions, you can buy time to wipe out your information as soon as you realize it's gone.
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