Recently obtained numbers suggest that the world has more than 800 million iPhones in use, and the number is growing rapidly with every passing day. The immense popularity enjoyed by iPhones all around the globe shouldn’t surprise many, as this Apple product deserves it. Like most other products belonging to the Apple Brand, iPhones are also highly functional.
The security features of the iPhone are pretty impressive. Apple has done everything to ensure that users don’t experience significant security issues when using the iPhone. However, as an iPhone user, you must also take certain steps to ensure 100% protection against data and identity theft. Read on to know about them.
- Practice Data Encryption
No one can avoid using a public Wi-Fi network if they need to spend most of the time outside their home. However, while using such networks, you must remember that they are rarely encrypted and might collect your private data for profit.
By using unencrypted connections, you are allowing the network operators to see what you are viewing on a website as well as the information you are sharing on that website. They will have easy access to the data you entered when filling out forms or photos you uploaded. They can even get access to your chats, emails, passwords, and personal information like social security numbers.
To prevent such occurrences, you must use an iPhone VPN. The service works by stopping the network provider from viewing your activities online. It also helps keep online data secured due to its ability to encrypt all the traffic coming from and going to a device.
- Be Careful When Using New Apps
Smartphones, including iPhones, are so effective only due to the apps we get to use on them. As a result, developers keep launching new apps, each of which comes with innovative features to make life easier for you.
While there’s no use in having an iPhone without apps, you must ensure that the apps you are downloading are not putting your device and data at risk of facing cybersecurity issues.
Stick to reputable apps if you want to keep your iPhone protected from hackers. Additionally, keep checking the permissions of every app you use regularly. This is important to ensure that those apps can access only the data you expect them to use.
One way of staying away from malicious apps when using an iPhone is by downloading applications only from the iOS Apple Store. Also, verify that the application file has come from a trustworthy source.
- Protect Your Device Against Malware
Malicious software, more commonly referred to as malware, has always been an integral part of internet use. These programs steal or damage sensitive user data for political or personal gain.
You may become victims of malware attacks even when using high-end mobile phones like an iPhone. It’s common for mobile malware to remain disguised as trusted and popular apps so that users download them without conducting too much research. However, once you download and install those duplicate apps, they may steal your account credentials, install other more powerful malware apps without your permission, or carry out various unwanted actions on your iPhone.
To avoid such events, be cautious when downloading an app from the App Store. Also, install anti-malware software on your phone.
- Install Antivirus Software
You must be looking to use your iPhone for shopping, accessing your bank account, sending emails, downloading documents, taking part in business meetings through video chats, etc. Unfortunately, all these activities leave your device at high risk of getting exposed to viruses.
If you don’t want to expose your iPhone to viruses, you must have powerful antivirus software installed. Allow the antivirus to be updated automatically to keep your device protected from newly developed viruses.
- Carefully Monitor the Automatic Backup Function
Being a phone embedded with advanced features, your iPhone would feature a backup function. This feature makes the phone even more convenient for regular users. However, if you are not careful about what kind of data you are backing up, you might face severe security and privacy issues.
So, you must always back up selectively. Certain data like app data, personal messages, social media posts may already exist in the cloud. So, you’ll not need to back them up separately. However, you must be particularly careful when backing up the encrypted messages. That’s because the automatic backup doesn’t keep such data encrypted, which leaves you at risk of experiencing online data theft. You can prevent such events by opting for offline backups.
Offline backups done using a PC or laptop or tools like iTunes enable data encryption. To enhance the security of your data even further, use strong encryption passcodes. Once the encryption is done, you can upload the encrypted data to the cloud.
Conclusion
If you want to use your iPhone to the best of your ability, following the above cybersecurity tips is a must for you. None of these tips are difficult to implement. You’ll only need to be a little alert to ensure that you abide by the suggestions diligently.