What to do if Your Lose Your Smartphone
Many if not most people own smartphones nowadays and they hold a lot of information. What happens if you lose it?
The security risk of lost smartphones
Researchers at Symantec found out that 96 percent of individuals who find a lost smartphone attempted to access personal or business data stored in the device. The study also found out that 45 percent of individuals who found a lost smartphone made an effort to access the corporate e-mail client on the device. This is certainly scary news. Naturally, smartphones are designed to be tiny. It is easy to misplace them.
Human nature and smartphone tech
The Symantec study was in essence studying human nature. 50 smartphones were left in large cities in North America; namely New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Ottawa. Many of the files the phones contained were fake and had enticing labels that include “online banking” and “saved passwords”.
According to the study results, 72 percent of people who found a phone tried to access photos, 57 percent attempted to open a file named "saved passwords," and 43 percent tried to open the "online banking" app. This absolutely should concern those who have the habit of losing their phone.
Protecting your smartphone
Fortunately there are a few steps people could take to shield themselves should they lose their smartphones.
The simplest way to guard the data on your smartphone is always to make a secure password. It may seem obvious, but you would be astonished at how many people don’t password protect their phones. There's also many apps that securely lock specific apps or files. A less obvious choice is to subscribe to a service that allows you to remotely wipe your smartphones memory. No matter which method you use, it’s crucial that you take some method of securing your smartphone in case of loss or theft.