Guest Article: How to Keep Your Smartphone Secure When Using Public WiFi

wifi

Caroline Black from Secure Thoughts shares some tips on how you can better protect your mobile data using public networks.

Public WiFi can be an easy access point for hackers to obtain your personal information. Whether you’re on your tablet, laptop or smartphone, the risks remain the same: some creep could be around the corner or even at the next table spying on your online activities, lurking on your accounts and taking down your login and banking information. It’s likely that there are many personal details stored on your device, whether you know it or not.

Smartphones especially come with risks because you are always logged into one of your accounts (as required by the operating system). It’s also easy to forget to log out on the websites you visit and many users save their passwords for a simpler way to access the pages later on. Anyone who sneaks their way into your smartphone can easily find this information, whether they physically have your device or if they’re hacking into it through an unsecured network.

So how are you able to prevent this from occurring anyways? Avoiding public WiFi is not an option for many smartphone users, especially when they’re on the go. So instead of ditching the public WiFi, consider securing your device. Here’s how you can do just that:

Check Your Accounts

Besides keeping an eye on your account activity on a regular basis, you should avoid saving your passwords on your device. Sometimes your web browser will ask you if you’d like to save your passwords, though you could have also stored them in a memo on your phone. Whichever might be the case, you should never store your passwords on your smartphone. Continue reading “Guest Article: How to Keep Your Smartphone Secure When Using Public WiFi”

Android 5.1 Brings Better Device Protection for Lost or Stolen Phones and Tablets

Android Lollipop ForestTrying to steal a few headlines from Apple today, Google officially and publicly announced Android Lollipop 5.1.

Alongside bug fixes and performance improvements, Android 5.1 brings a much improved security with Device Protection. We’ve detailed Device Manager in the past, which can be used to locate a missing phone or wipe it clean in the event it’s stolen.

Device Protection now includes the ability to lock a device to your Google ID. Even after wiping and hard resetting a phone, Android will require you to enter in your Google account password before the phone can be used again. This follows recent state legislation in California and Minnesota mandating a “Kill Switch” on phones. The idea being a stolen phone will be far less valuable if it’s essentially a brick without the victim’s password. Continue reading “Android 5.1 Brings Better Device Protection for Lost or Stolen Phones and Tablets”

Review: V.ALRT is a Smart, Wearable, Panic Button for Personal Security and Care Givers

As we add more sensors and gadgets to our Personal Area Networks, VSNMOBIL is carving out a niche in personal security. The V.ALRT is a big emergency panic button which connects to your phone over bluetooth and has only one job. It sends alerts to your contacts when you might be in danger or need help. Let’s take a look at how it works!

Shop the V.ALRT on Amazon.
More info at: https://www.vsnmobil.com/

Microsoft Extending Anti-Malware Support for Windows XP through July 2015

windows_xp_logoSeriously folks. If this article is relevant to you, you desperately need to move on. No Joke.

April 8, 2014 is becoming something of a doomsday date. That’s the day official support and updates stop for Windows XP. The OS is over 12 years old now, and a shocking number of computers still run it. After that date, the more dramatic tech commentators among us are expecting calamity as holes, bugs, and exploits will no longer be fixed by Microsoft. There’s a certain expectation that waves of malware will be introduced into the ecosystem, preying on folks who probably aren’t the tech-savviest users on the net.

Microsoft is in a difficult situation. As a profit generating corporation, they genuinely need more people to update to newer software and hardware. They also have a responsibility to not allow one of their most successful products to become a malware infested zombie hulk of an operating system. It’s a scary proposition as some estimates place XP at 30% of the consumer computing market. XP by itself still outpaces OSX and Linux combined in households. Microsoft would be perfectly within their rights to hold to their current support plans, but it would leave a lot of people in the lurch.

And this brings us to the current farce of moving the goal posts. Official support is still ending in April, but now Microsoft is announcing an extension to certificates and anti-malware support through July 14, 2015. This move could backfire, providing XP users a false sense of security. It’s not particularly clear how effective anti-malware support will be on an OS receiving no updates.

And those users might be in for a shock if the upgrade now. The move from XP to Win7, they still would’ve recognized most of how the OS was organized. Now a move to Windows 8 will be more of a culture shock on first boot. It’s a testament to how good XP was that so many people continue using it, but all good things must come to an end.

Full PR below:

Continue reading “Microsoft Extending Anti-Malware Support for Windows XP through July 2015”

Android Device Manager now a Standalone App: Locate Lost Phones, Reset Passcode, Remote Wipe Data

android device manager on google play app protection remote lock wipe screenshotBabysteps people…

I still find supremely frustrating that we don’t have a kill switch option on our phones. A self destruct setting. Something that would make our glowing rectangles FAR less attractive to thieves. In the meantime, services like this help move us in the right direction.

Android Device Manager was built into newer releases of the Android OS, but that didn’t help folks on OLDER versions of Android. Now you can grab it as a standalone app, and that makes me really happy. Again, we’re seeing Google side step manufacturers and carriers which aren’t updating older phones, and offering more of their OS services as standalone apss they can update and control. Wise move.

Android Device Manager allows you to track a lost phone, reset your password, and in the event you can not retrieve the device you can wipe it out to prevent your data falling in the wrong hands. We still don’t have a hard lock/brick setting, but at least we have better, officially supported tools to protect our Android phones and tablets.

Go get at folks. It’s compatible with Android 2.3 and newer models!
Data and device security is something we should all be on top of.

Android Device Manager on Google Play

Kingston ships new encrypted USB 3 Flash Drives – Password protect your data with DataTraveler Vault Privacy 3.0

prodDT-DTVP30AV-imgI used to work a government contract. Even though I don’t handle sensitive information anymore I still password protect just about every device I own. I recently reviewed the Kingston DataTraveler 6000, a USB 2 flash drive which uses military grade encryption and anti-intrusion measures to make sure your mobile data can never fall into the wrong hands. I liked it a lot.

Kingston is now introducing a pair of USB 3 protected drives which might be good for businesses or those just looking for a bit more piece of mind with their own personal data. The Vault Privacy 3.0  features hardware based 256-bit AES encryption and password protection. After 10 failed login attempts the drive wipes itself clean making sure your data can’t be accessed.

The Vault Privacy 3.0 Anti-Virus offers all of the same intrusion protections while adding anti-virus protections into the mix courtesy of ESET/ClevX to protect against viruses, worms, rootkits, and other malware.

Both Vaults are available in sizes from 4GB to 64GB, and Kingston is first to market with USB 3 protected drives. Check them out if you’ve been looking for strategies to safeguard your info.

See our review of the Kingston DataTraveler Locker+ G3!

Full PR after the jump.

Continue reading “Kingston ships new encrypted USB 3 Flash Drives – Password protect your data with DataTraveler Vault Privacy 3.0”