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Thursday 20 June 2013

Mobile devices have changed our lives … but for the better?

Thursday, June 20, 2013
Get Safe Online

Three or four times a week, I get caught up in the bustle of people shopping, going to the bank, meeting their friends, having business meetings and emailing their friends and colleagues.
And that’s just on the train.
Take a step back and consider how mobile devices have changed our lives … it’s mind-boggling. But this fantastic technology has also introduced some pretty major potential problems too, if we’re not careful when using them. 

Mobile Threats on the Rise

Take viruses and malware, for example. How many times a week do the guys in our team at Get Safe Online hear the words “my phone (or tablet) is safe from viruses … not like my computer”? Wrong! According to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report published in April, statistics show an alarming increase in attacks on mobile devices ... up by 58% in 2012 over the previous year. Just under a third of these attacks were intended to steal data without the user’s knowledge, with Android – which has a 75% share of the global market – still the most targeted platform. Sophisticated protection apps are available from all reputable internet security vendors, so download and use them!
These days, smartphones and tablets are used as much to go online at home as they are when you’re out and about. Of the two, your home is the safer place to go online in terms of protecting your privacy, as long as you observe the rules about your WiFi network being secure and treating your device like a normal computer, that is. Using your mobile device in cafes, pubs and hotels is a different matter, however. It’s tempting to do your banking or shopping while you’re enjoying that well-deserved coffee, but is that hotspot really secure? Who’s looking over your shoulder? And what do you do with your device when you want to get a second latte? Leave it on the table and switched on, with your email address, contact list and photos of your kids there for all to see? I hope not.

Check for Phishing when Scanning QR Codes

What about QR codes – those square artworks you see everywhere from window posters to customer service feedback cards, decipherable only by a mobile scanning app? You can’t even read the website address where the code is taking you, so just a like a fake address in an email or a letter, they could have been ‘tinkered’ with by fraudsters. Again, all it takes is a little discretion on your part regarding which codes to scan, and which to avoid.
Similarly, with the new generation of mobile services that make it so easy to transfer money to other people, take precautions like choosing and using passcodes carefully, keeping them secret and not storing them on your device. Always double-check the phone number that you are sending money to, before clicking ‘confirm payment’.

Identity Theft

Then, of course, there’s the physical safety of your mobile device itself – the theft or loss of which involves not only having to shell out for another one, but invariably means that someone else can access personal and financial information held on the device. Only the other day, our site reported on a concerning increase in thefts, citing the case of the restaurant owner in London who actually had his mobile device with him at the table while dining al fresco with a colleague, when a man walked past, casual as you like, picked up his device and ran off to a waiting scooter … never to be seen again. Equally common outside or inside pubs and restaurants, it’s a growing trend.
Disposing of your old phone or tablet demands equal vigilance. As with a computer, simply deleting information often doesn’t mean that it’s wiped off the device, leaving you open to fraud or identity theft. This week we reported on ‘recycled’ UK phones being bought by foreign criminals with the intention of doing just that. Is your old smartphone one of them?

Family Safety 

But as both CEO of Get Safe Online and a family man, the aspect that concerns me most about mobile devices is in the context of our children. Giving a child a phone so that they can “always keep in touch” could be unwittingly giving them access to inappropriate material and social networking sites and chatrooms for which they’re too young, to say nothing of running up massive bills for premium rate numbers and ‘free’ games. Of course, you can educate your children from an early age as well as introducing technical controls, but their friends’ parents may not be so careful. For example, eight children in ten know the password and PIN to their parents' mobile devices, according to a piece in the Daily Mail.
To most of us, our mobile phones have become our wallets, our diaries, our address books, our photo albums ….our lives. So let’s guard them with our lives, and keep safe when out and about.
Tony Neate, Get Safe Online

About the Author

Tony Neate is CEO of Get Safe Online, the joint public/private sector-funded, not-for-profit organisation which provides free, practical advice on online safety to the UK public and small businesses. Tony regularly represents Get Safe Online by presenting to conferences, forums and meetings both in the UK and overseas, as well as appearing on television and radio and giving media interviews on topical issues. Tony was part of the team that set up Get Safe Online in 2006, following a distinguished 30-year career in the Police force, latterly responsible for industry liaison within the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, remaining there when it became a part of SOCA.

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