Recently, Apple announced the iPhone 12 and is now on-sale in Australia. Naturally, people are excited to experience what’s new with this iPhone, faster performance, better cameras, and the biggest design refresh we’ve seen in more than 3 years.
When humans are filled with emotions, it’s easy to focus on the bright and shiny and not on what really matters. Getting a new phone is ultimately an opportunity to review how you do things on the security front.
With mobile phones being such rich sources of data, they also are a constant target for attacks. Existing iPhone owners will likely transfer dozens of apps to their new phone, each with a set of credentials that could be caught up in online security breaches from service providers.
Given cybercrime is one of the most escalating crimes in the world right now, protecting your accounts and your device is more important now than ever.
Before using your new iPhone 12, here are some cybersecurity tips to ensure you have a safe experience.
Encrypt your online activity
Whenever we are browsing the internet online, we don’t even know but our online activity can easily be viewed by cybercriminals. This usually happens when the WiFi connections are left unencrypted.
Because of this, our loss of any personal data or even some sensitive and private information can leave us in a vulnerable position. To help with this, always encrypt your connections with a VPN while you are online. The VPN masks the IP address and encrypts the online traffic so that third parties or hackers cannot see it.
USB restricted mode
Once your phone gets attached to or connected to another device, there is a chance of cybercriminals getting into your phone and gaining access to all your data. Connecting to unknown devices can also corrupt your device with viruses that further leave your phone’s security at stake.
This is a tool that lets hackers easily get into your systems even bypass your passcode and access your data without you knowing. For this reason, make sure you turn on USB restricted mode in your new iPhone.
Look out for fake apps
We often tend to install apps randomly and never really look into the legality and authentication of these apps. Many criminals have used this way to get people to enter their personal, credit card, or contact information as well as passwords through this scam of fake apps.
To avoid falling into such traps, do double-check the legitimacy and authenticity of apps you are about to download. Search for official websites to get hands on the official links to the apps.
Avoid opening unknown links
Many times while we are browsing online or on any website, some unknown links appear. These links are not safe and usually pose a threat to not only the phone but can let hackers access to your email account directly.
These links look very real and can get you confused with original pages. Once the hackers have access to your email account, they have access to almost everything your email id is linked with. Again leaving you vulnerable. Therefore, the smart way to deal with it is to not click on links you are not familiar with.
Be cautious of the permissions
We are talking about the permissions asked by the apps on installation. What leads to the problem of cybersecurity here is when we do not pay attention as to what we are giving permission for, to these app developers.
Once we grant these permissions without really looking into the details, we let a third party get closer to us in terms of knowing the personal information like location, pictures, and other private activity online.
For this purpose, it is essential to set the default to always ask for permission on the installation of apps and you should deny the permission to “access to..” whatever you are not comfortable sharing with, for your own security reasons.
To conclude, it is high time we take cybersecurity into our own hands for quality time online. It may seem that the internet is a safe space while in reality there are many online threats to your cybersecurity unless proper anti-cybercrime measures are taken by the users.
