Tips to Secure Your Phone and Prevent a Security Incident
We recently commissioned a survey from Angus Reid looking at Canadians perception of cyber and device security, which found some surprising statistics.
The ongoing pandemic forced most Canadians to rapidly adapt to working from home. While some of us may have purchased or been given landline phones when setting up the home office, many have adapted to being even more reliant on our cellphones. This further muddies the water between work and personal lives, as our work email which can contains sensitive information is now on the same device as our personal email and the various apps we use daily. We recently commissioned a survey from Angus Reid looking at Canadians perception of cyber and device security, which found some surprising statistics, both positively and negatively. To help educate Canadians on the importance of protecting one's mobile device, we've provided some tips that should be put into practice.
Maintaingood device hygiene
Device hygiene is easy to uphold and will go a long way tomaintaining its security. One easy step is to ensure your phone has the latestupdates. Ideally, weekly to monthly checks for new updates should be performed,but enabling automatic updates is a good way to ensure your phone always hasthe latest firmware to help ward off potential threats. Surprisingly,only 34 percent of workingCanadians cited staying up to date with operating system updates and/or systempatches. It's important to remember these updates are created with the latestcybersecurity threats in mind.
Maintainstrong password hygiene
Another easy way to increase security measures is to setpasscodes or passphrases on your phones. The passwords should be long andcomplex to avoid the possibility of others being able to guess them. Using amixture of upper- and lower-case letters as well as numbers and symbols canimprove their strength. A password manager is a great tool to store all of yourpasswords in one place without fear of forgetting them. Passwords should bekept to yourself, which isn't always the case. Our survey found that nearlyone third (27%) of Canadians share their phone password with a few people.
Enable multi-factor authentication
Incorporating multi-factor authentication ensures if yourdevice is compromised, several levels of verification are necessary for anyoneto gain full access to the device. Our survey found just over half of workingCanadians (51 percent) use some form of multi-factor authentication on theirphones. Further measures such as enabling face scanning or thumbprint IDs aregood ways to further secure the device. The newest phones typically come withthese advanced capabilities, and consumers should take advantage of them.
Exercisecaution when browsing the app store
When downloading apps, it's important to identify whichare real and which are clones. In another sobering statistic, only 36 percentof working Canadian cited app, program or software security as a top cyberconcern. Clone apps are often put on the app store in hopes of having youmistake them for the official ones. From there, it becomes easy for hackers to accessyour data once you activate the app. A few ways to verify official apps are tocheck the publisher and look at reviews. Also make sure to question the apppermissions when prompted. Ask yourself, why does this app require access tomy microphone or camera?
Keep abreast of common scam attempts and be vigilant
When it comes to phones, one scam that is often used isphishing through SMS. If you receive a suspicious text message with a linkattached, do not click it. A common example would be posing as a bank and usinga link to try and get users to investigate what is going on with theiraccounts.
Similarly, the use of tax or government benefit phishingploys have seen a sharp increase during the pandemic, which makes it all themore concerning that 48 percent of working Canadians say the pandemic has notchanged how they prioritize device protection and privacy settings. Lastly, youshould always be wary of accessing public Wi-Fi as they often leave your deviceopen to others on the network.
With decades of experience, CDW can objectively assess your organization's cybersecurity practices and create a strategy that helps you predict, prevent and quickly respond to evolving cyberattacks. To learn more, visit cdw.ca/cybersecurity.