Here's how you can keep strangers from accessing your personal information, safely back up and retrieve the photos and videos you've stored in the device, and, with a little luck, increase your chances of recovering your phone.
Before your smart phone is gone
Step 1: Use a strong screen lock
This is your first and strongest line of defense. Skip the easy 4-digit PIN and instead create a strong password that contains a string of at least 8 characters that include some combination of letters, numbers, and special characters that don't form recognizable words or phrases—especially those that could be associated with you. For instance, Fred1969 is a weak password, but F!ed9691 could be much harder to crack. While typing a nontrivial password may feel cumbersome at first, it should get much easier with practice.
The iPhone 5S's Touch ID fingerprint reader, built into its Home button, is designed to do away with this drudgery. We found it faster than typing a PIN. (Even with Touch ID enabled, you should still use a strong passcode.) We were able to go from a sleeping screen to the desktop in about a second. Password protection comes with another safeguard: After several unsuccessful tries to enter a passcode, typically 10, some phones will automatically erase all of your personal data. If your phone provides this option, activate it.
2 comments:
Never use a smart phone for banking or credit card transactions. If you do, good luck to you.
Does anyone just make phone calls anymore? Besides me that is.
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