Smartphone Users' Info Compromised
Experts have been predicting for some time now that smartphones are going to be the next big target for hackers and cybercriminals. An ever-growing number of people are becoming dependent on their phones for email, banking, business transactions, and more. Many predictions for the upcoming year's network security issues involve scams, viruses, and hacks directed at smartphones - particularly iPhones and Android phones. You can expect to see an increase in stories about this threat as time marches on.Here is one example of a simple way our phones could become dangerous to our personal information:
There is an app for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry called Trapster. Its purpose is to alert users to "speed traps" on the roads reported by other users. As with most apps, you must provide an email address and create a password to access all the features. The security at Trapster was recently breached and it seems that the email addresses and passwords of ten million users may or may not have been hacked.
An article at Mashable.com reports that Trapster users received an email stating, "The Trapster team has recently learned that our website has been the target of a hacking attempt, and it is possible that your email address and password were compromised." So what?, you may wonder. There's really nothing anyone can do to harm you if they're able to login to a speed trap app as you.
Here's the danger: many of us have gotten very lazy with passwords and we tend to use the same passwords for everything - email, online banking and bill payments, photo sharing, social networking, work email, childrens' school websites, gaming sites, chat rooms, etc., etc., etc. The basic fact is that we have so many passwords to keep track of that it would be difficult to remember any if they were all different so we tend to use the same password for everything. That means if somebody got a hold of a Trapster user's email address and password, there's a good chance that same password could be used to login to his email account, or that same email account and password could be used together to login into his bank account. You can see how that situation could quickly turn into some very damaging identity theft.
The main tips we should take from this information are:
- It is not wise to use the same password for everything. It make require some extra effort, but you will be much more secure if you can use different passwords for different websites. You can keep track of your varied passwords by storing them in a protected file on your computer or writing them down somewhere secure. There are also programs like KeePass that will store login information passwords for any accounts you want under one master password. Make this password difficult to guess and you will be much safer.
- We need to exercise caution when using our cell phones. Like any other powerful tool, they can be used against us if we are not careful. Consider taking precautions like not automatically storing passwords and not accessing password-protected sites across Wi-Fi connections. Stay tuned to Coates Click-N-Learn Newsletter in the future for more tips on smartphone security.
