{"id":380,"date":"2016-11-02T12:36:32","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T16:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/?p=380"},"modified":"2016-11-02T12:36:32","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T16:36:32","slug":"being-smart-with-your-smartphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/2016\/11\/02\/being-smart-with-your-smartphone\/","title":{"rendered":"Being &#8220;Smart&#8221; With Your Smartphone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last month was National Cyber Security Awareness Month.\u00a0 To keep you thinking about security, this is the third of four tips based on current hot topics at the university.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Being \u201cSmart\u201d With Your Smartphone<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Chances are if you have a smartphone you know what a useful tool it can be and chances are even greater using it as a \u201cphone\u201d constitutes a small percentage.\u00a0 With that in mind, we offer some tips to help you stay secure:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stay up-to-date with software updates.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>We know that change is hard and often not welcome, but updates usually include important security fixes that ensure the information you enter, access, and store in your smartphone stays secure.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Set a passcode.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>It doesn\u2019t have to be a combination of 23 letters, numbers, and special characters.\u00a0 Even just enabling the passcode enables important security features, such as encrypting the data on the phone so that only someone with the correct passcode can decrypt it.\u00a0 A four-digit passcode is a start, but even better is something simple that adds a bit of complexity yet is easy to type on a tiny virtual keyboard.\u00a0 Examples: 37Snowflake or Freefall28<\/li>\n<li><strong>App Stores.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Sticking with the native app stores, such as the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, will help to ensure that the apps you install don\u2019t contain any password-stealing malware.\u00a0 There are examples of simple game apps stealing information from your phone and sending it off to the Internet while you\u2019re playing the game.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Loss\/Theft:\u00a0<\/strong>Subscribe to the \u201cfind my device\u201d service for your particular phone.\u00a0 By doing this, if you do lose your phone, you\u2019ll have multiple options for locating the device, sending a message to it, or even erasing it remotely.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month was National Cyber Security Awareness Month.\u00a0 To keep you thinking about security, this is the third of four tips based on current hot topics at the university. Being \u201cSmart\u201d With Your Smartphone Chances are if you have a smartphone you know what a useful tool it can be and chances are even greater &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/2016\/11\/02\/being-smart-with-your-smartphone\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Being &#8220;Smart&#8221; With Your Smartphone&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1230,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"dbrisson","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/author\/dbrisson\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/whysecurity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}