Smartphone Privacy: Everything you need to know
Whether we admit it or not, we rely on our smartphones on a day-to-day basis. It has become an integral part of how we live and how we interact with the world, from talking to our loved ones to sending cash to a friend in need. Smartphones have become a necessity for us to the point that we can’t function efficiently without them.
Our reliance on smartphones is further intensified with the hybrid world we are living in now, where work accounts spill over to personal ones. In other words, they are the first thing that we reach after we wake up and the last thing we let go of before we sleep.
However, with all its use cases that we enjoy daily, there is this risk that we must live by; the risk of exposing ourselves to others or to opportunistic bad actors using our personal data that was collected by our own phones.
Also Read: Choosing a penetration testing vendor: Your complete checklist in Singapore
Exposing what your smartphone can reveal
Some might say that they are secured by the fact that they have lock screens in place, but this isn’t the case for skilled hackers and bad actors who can dismantle your phone and look from the inside, something that you won’t expect as deemed possible.
In the case of a Hong Kong Actor, Edison Chen, his scandal photos were leaked online after the repair technicians recovered his intimate photos, which were supposedly prior from his broken laptop. This is how scary storing files in your phone is, especially if your smartphone is stolen or lost and someone who has it is capable of extracting data from its storage chips and decides to upload it to the internet.
Furthermore, there’s more than one way of infiltrating your smartphone with today’s technology. Some bad actors may resort to all types of phishing, which uses malware to infect and record your smartphone’s every move. With the stealthy nature of these attacks, your phone might already be infected without letting you know.
Vulnerabilities within the smartphone’s operating system can also be present, making it extra terrifying as all that the bad actor needs to do is exploit it without the need for social engineering tactics. While a simple software update can fix it, it might be too late, as bad actors are constantly lurking and waiting before you can make your move.
Critical vulnerability found in Apple devices
Apple users are urged to update their devices quickly after hackers were discovered actively exploiting a “major vulnerability,” according to an updated advisory issued by the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT) on September 14, 2022.
According to SingCERT, Apple has published security updates to address a “zero-day critical vulnerability” discovered in its products. Based on the information security and technology news publication Bleeping Computer, this is the eighth zero-day vulnerability utilised in assaults against iPhones and Macs since the beginning of the year.
“Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may allow an attacker to enable maliciously built programs to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges,” SingCERT added. With this, users are also recommended to enable automatic software updates in their devices’ settings.
Privacy tips to mitigate these risks
- Find your service provider’s privacy policy and opt-out of sharing personal data when possible.
- Scan the privacy policy for important information. Look for sections about control or choice over your information.
- Minimize the information you leak to service providers by changing how you use your smartphone.
- Avoid and mitigate risks of smartphone theft, as thieves can easily extract your personal data from the stolen phone.
- Pay close attention to application permissions, as they may allow certain permissions to collect and disclose your data.
- Exercise caution when installing applications, as they may be laced with malware.
- Disable photo geotagging on your phone
- Use public Wi-Fi networks cautiously.
Worried that you might not follow all the checklist? We got you covered!
Worry no more! Introducing the AntiHACK phone by Privacy Ninja
Privacy Ninja is now putting a stop to certain privacy invasion concerns in using your smartphone. You don’t have to worry about all kinds of phishing attacks, from worrying that your personal data will be leaked after it is stolen or lost, or from software vulnerabilities that bad actors might exploit.
This AntiHACK phone is brought to you by digital forensics and counterintelligence experts. It is fully encrypted and unlockable by anyone other than yourself, providing military-grade and enterprise encryption standards to the everyday smartphone user.
AntiHACK phone’s key features
Google apps and services are not installed by default but can be used as regular sandboxed apps through our sandboxed Google Play feature. Users decide if they want to use those apps and which profiles they want to use them in.
Endless personas. A single swipe-up gesture allows you to toggle between profiles. Create and save up to 16 profiles.
Automatically disables the inclusion of sensitive metadata in screenshots. EXIF tags examples include the local date, time, location, and OS build/version information.
Enable PIN scrambling to make it hard for others to memorize the PIN being entered. Improved Sandboxing Each app installed on the phone is not linked or can be tracked by other apps. So is the web browser. In fact, the whole Operating System is like a Virtual Machine Environment. Isolation is good.
Per-connection MAC address is randomized. Your phone will always be a new device when connecting to any network.
No access means no access. Toggle on/off the USB data connection when the screen is locked/unlocked based on your preference.
Conclusion
We can’t live without our smartphones. However, since our smartphones collect personal data of all aspects of our lives, this imposes a certain risk on our security and digital presence, especially since the digital world is filled with skilled hackers and bad actors lurking around.
Luckily, there is Privacy Ninja’s AntiHACK Phone which provides users with 24/7 security and data encryption so that they will no longer worry that their personal data will be accessed by anyone, either through malware or physical access.
What are you waiting for? Contact Privacy Ninja now and get your very own AntiHACK Phone!
Also Read: Singapore cyber landscape 2021: What your organisation should know
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