Consumer Alert
Three ways to protect the personal info on your phone
Image
Imagine carrying a written copy of all your conversations with you everywhere you went. Or copies of your account numbers, usernames, and passwords. Or all the photos and videos you’ve ever taken. I bet you’d do just about everything in your power to protect all that valuable information. Well, your mobile phone holds all that stuff — and maybe more. Are you doing everything in your power to keep it from ending up in the wrong hands? Here are three things you can do today to protect the personal information on your phone.
1. Lock it. Keep prying eyes out of your phone by setting it to automatically lock when you’re not using it and create a PIN or passcode to unlock it. Longer passcodes are better, so use at least six digits. After you’ve set it up, you might be able to unlock your phone with your fingerprint, your face, or your iris.
2. Update it. Your operating system has security features built into it. And phone manufacturers regularly push out free updates to protect you against security threats. Set your phone to automatically update the operating system to stay up with the latest protections.
Here’s how to update your phone >
Bonus: Update your apps, too. And delete any apps you don’t use.
3. Back it up. The convenience and portability of our phone puts it in peril. We might break or lose it. Or an opportunistic criminal might steal it. Back up your phone to the cloud or an external drive. That way you can recover your information if something goes wrong. And turn on the feature that helps you track a lost or stolen phone – it also lets you remotely lock or erase your phone if someone steals it, or you can’t find it.
Search Terms
Scams
I just had an incident concerning an app from the Google store. Down loaded a PDF app. After I down
loaded it, adds began popping up. I could not move forward unless I purchased an add free blocker. I couldn't evev unstall it; I had to go to the trash setting on my phone to remove. I felt I was hijack and had to pay randsom money to move forword. Do you have any suggestions I can pursue?
Thank you for your time.
Respectfully,
Jane Maddan
Thank you for this information
Genrally worthwhile and helpful items to think about. Thanks.
Keep in mind that backing up to the cloud is backing up to somebody else’s server. Pay attention to their privacy and security policies if you have any sensitive data to back up.
Thanks for doing a great job.
The cloud is just another server. I assume it can be hacked as well. It also keeps any undesirable activities away from your notice. I don't see it as being any safer. - I have had my computers want to update every single day. I don't call that normal, or safe. There doesn't seem to be any way I can control this action. I also have no idea what is being "updated" on any device or at any time. The entire online system is a problem. - How would I know my devices aren't already hacked? Criminals keep getting smarter. Internet crime is going to force international government and laws and justice systems. Our laws may mean nothing in that kind of environment. The future is a big problem for freedom and justice.
Very good advice that I will share with my community. Thank you FTC!
Thank you for sharing the information is very helpful and valuable
What can I do to prevent large corporations who collect all my data from getting hacked? It seems there is always tips for consumers to lock up their accounts but the last ten times my information has been stolen, it wasn't because I didn't have a strong enough password. I can't use the voice-mail or camera app on my phone without granting unnecessary permissions but all that data collected is out of my control. I've lost count of how many "we're sorry, bad actors stole all your info off our servers, here's some free credit monitoring to make up for it." I need to have a "strong password" and multifactor authorization but they can get hacked when an employee opens an email? Or they neglect to put data on private servers? Where's the accountability for that? I'd like to hear more how these massive companies are taking security seriously. Maybe even having some real consequences for sloppy security practices. Until then at least I have a decade of "free" credit monitoring, they just need my credit card number to get started!
In reply to What can I do to prevent… by B. Smith
Absolutely agree with you
In reply to What can I do to prevent… by B. Smith
One of the places I was exposed was because I needed a medical test done. It was sent to an outside lab and lab got exposed. How on earth can we control that? The system is broken. There needs to be a better solution than telling us to be careful.
In reply to What can I do to prevent… by B. Smith
I am anticipating the answer to your very astute/real complaint. Will one come from the FTC? I'm a victim of the National Public Data breach with my social security number out there for sale! I've already frozen my credit. What else can I do???
Thank you, easy and excellent recommendations
Very helpful info. Thanks!
Please refer to my letter to the Editor, Washington Post, Wed 28 August. I am fed up with almost daily warnings about internet dangers and how the burden for protection is on the consumer--that we are responsible for protecting ourselves--I NEVER see a mention of identifying, exposing, and when possible, prosecuting the crooks, real people behind all the internet insecurity and risks to identity and assets. NEVER!! I once filled out an FTC complaint form, and it took over 1/2 hour--I suspect few reports are made because it is too complex and cumbersome, and we can only assume nothing is done about out complaints. I noted with concern that internet security, the billions stollen, and millions of national hours wasted every day, and the billion $$ industry that "protects" us--that nothing was mentioned in the Presidential debates about, to me, this worst aspect of my live in modern times. What we need is a simple national 911-type phone number and e-mail address to report to FTC, without the need for personal information, suspicious calls or e-mails, and then for you to create a giant AI program to separate wheat from chaff, go after the crooks, and ignore the safe communications. Why is internet crime, magnitudes greater than old fashioned bank robbery, not gone after? How absurd it would be if my money in my bank could be attacked by almost anybody, I would have to pay Norton or others to protect my bank account, and any overt robberies would be ignored by police. But, that's the internet--no clear attempt anywhere to put a stop to the largest crime world and industry in human history.
Thank you ! This information is so helpful and valuable. Many people are not aware of the various scams and deception that is happening. Keep us informed. Thank you
I just got an extortion email asking for $2000 in Bit coin to prevent the sender from smearing my reputation online. They printed my name, telephone number and address plus a picture of the building!
(Happily, I never longer live there!) it was very chilling to see all the information they had.
I didn't know where to report it since it is not the usual type of phishing scheme.
She's right. All advise is always about how we as a customer of All this, is about what we can do to protect us against ID theft. What about the ones that invented all this Internet stuff and software? Nobody ever says what they are doing to protect us. Who are we supposed to collect from for our damages?
Thanks for the updates,I may not use them all,but very great intuned info.Too many scams out there for sure
This is good information.