Always lock your devices when you step away, even if it’s just for a moment!

Protecting your devices whether for work or personal use is not just about having strong passwords. One thing that people overlook is how easy it is for bad actors to access your device, even if you have screen lock enabled. Despite everything we do to protect our devices they do get lost and stolen and there are situations where bad actors access our devices because we left them untended for just a few minutes. Many of us have passcodes enabled on our devices, but we tend to create 4-to-6-digit passcodes and often do not enable biometrics, such as facial or fingerprint verification. This makes it easy for fraudsters to use readily available tools such as LockWiper, iMyFone and MobiUnlock to unlock our devices and access all our data. The sad part is that these bad actors do not need to have a lot of technical skill to unlock your lost or stolen device.

Here are tips on how to secure your devices:

• Set your devices to automatically lock – I suggest you set it up to lock if there is no activity within 2 minutes.
• Enable biometric features – Most devices now offer facial verification or fingerprint verification as an option to enable. If your device is very old this may not be an option, so make sure the passcode you create is robust, in other words, treat it like a password by making it long and complicated.
• Get a password manager system – Password Manager systems do not cost huge amounts of money and they provide a lot of security. For example, if your device is stolen you can go on another device and sign in to your Password Manager and disable and change all your passwords very quickly stopping the fraudster from getting access to critical data.
• Finally, be mindful of your surroundings – At work or at home do not have sticky notes with passwords lying around, and when you leave turn off your devices. When you are out before you leave a place always doublecheck that you have your device with you.

Kim Krushell
Co-Founder