Don’t Be a Smartphone Dummy

Abstract

Mobile devices have become integral parts of our lives—particularly smartphones like Apple’s iPhone and all the variants of Android phones. Smartphones contain unbelievable amounts of extremely personal information including financial data, health data, your personal address book, e-mails, web surfing history, and access to much more data in the cloud. They also track your location pretty much anywhere on the planet, 24/7, because frankly they have to send you texts and phone calls. If that weren’t enough, smartphones have built-in microphones and cameras that can record everything you do. Your mobile phone may have more personal information on it than any other device you own, even more than your home computer. And make no mistake—a smartphone is a computer, and a very powerful one at that. Do you remember the Deep Blue supercomputer that beat chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997? The iPhone 8 has more than 20 times the computing power as Deep Blue, and it fits in your pocket! So, let’s talk about how we can secure these wonderful devices.