The mobile phone has become one more part of us. It has changed the way we communicate and relate to our surroundings. It was with the turn of the millennium when it began to be more used by people and became a global tool.
According to the website worldmeters, 7.9 billion people live in the world right now. There are estimates that we will reach 8,000 million in 2023, 9,000 million in 2037, and 10,000 million by the year 2055.
Of the 7900 million people, many of them currently own a mobile phone. According to the statista website, the current number of smartphone users in the world is 6.648 billion, and this means that 83.96% of the world’s population owns a smartphone. This figure is considerably higher than in 2016 when there were only 3,668 million users, 49.40% of the world’s population that year.
The importance of mobile phones in the world of the internet
If you have a website or are a data analyst, you will have noticed that today one of the most used means to surf the Internet are mobile devices. Proof of this is that this same website 57% of its visitors arrive through their mobile phone.
This percentage is so somewhat due to the articles published on this website, the theme of this website. It is likely that, if this page were an online store, or an e-learning platform, it would not have that percentage. It depends on the niche to which your website is focused. This gives an idea that whoever comes to avertigoland does so mainly through a search engine (Google) and through their mobile phone.
How to improve the security of your mobile phone
Internet connectivity exposes the devices we use to dangers in the form of viruses, malicious programs, phishing attacks, spam, etc., which cause the device to become slower, slow down the speed of Internet browsing and can destroy our computer or shake our bank account. Here are some recommendations that can help you keep your phone safe.
All devices that connect to the internet, including smartphones or smartphones, drag security problems. There is nothing in the network 100% secure. If you have a mobile phone it is likely that today, yesterday, last week, some application or even the operating system of the phone, were updated. These updates are often improvements in the application, such as more colorful menus, optimization of the app to make it faster, etc. But many other times critical security problems are solved. Both the operating system of your device and the applications you have installed on it must be up to date.
The only strong password is one you can’tremember. If you can’t remember it, who uses it, you’re less likely to be discovered by someone else. Therefore, it does not help that you use the same password over and over again or change something in that password in all applications. Today we have so many accounts, so many applications that it is impossible to remember everything. Therefore, it is important to use password managers. To enter a phone we must use a PIN that only we know, for everything else we must use strong passwords. Learn more about 7 steps to do to improve online security.
Sometimes, email server filters aren’t able to detect an email that arrives in your inbox as a threat. Many times it is because it is sent to you by someone you know and you do not doubt that it is a real document. Other times, it is a false negative, the filter does not detect anything and yet the mail has malicious content.
Other times we surf the net and we reach a page and click on a link that seems true to us and yet we arrive at a malicious page. In these cases it is important to use common sense and never click on links that lead to unencrypted pages.
If you work for a company it is essential that from the first day you inform yourself of the problems you may have when using mobile devices through training courses. If you have to make calls to someone else, hide your mobile number if it is personal and leave it undisguised if it is a business phone.
If you shop online it’s a good idea to only use one device. That device can be the mobile phone or a Tablet that if updated are safe. Passwords should remain on that device and not be shared with others. If you use password managers or apple keychain, they work, but remember to only use one device and not several. The more devices the more likely that some can get infected and share your personal data.
Another way to compromise the security of our mobile phone is to click on links that come to us by SMS. SMS is used less and less, but it is still widely used in smishing campaigns. Smishing is a variant of phishing, but for mobile phones. In it on many occasions a bank sends us an SMS so that we can check the security of our bank account when it has been compromised. A quick way to recognize this type of deception is to check the URL, the address the SMS points to. If it does not have SSL encryption, it is not https, you should never click on it.
iOS and Android vulnerabilities
The two dominant operating systems on smartphones are Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Each of them has pages where the vulnerabilities discovered are reported. You can view iOS security updates from this link and Android from this link.
While vendors typically fix these issues as they occur, small businesses should also take steps to protect business information and property by increasing security regarding cell phones and their use. Establishing policies and procedures on mobile phones can prevent security issues and should be in the company’s security protocol.
References
- https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-world
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/
- https://smallbusiness.chron.com/improve-cell-phone-security-46502.html
- https://support.apple.com/es-es/HT201222
- https://support.google.com/android/answer/7680439?hl=en
- https://1password.com/
- https://support.google.com/android/answer/7680439?hl=es
- https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7036019?hl=es
- https://www.incibe.es/aprendeciberseguridad/smishing
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