Not too long ago, Google’s project Zero team dropped a surprising report that iOS were being hacked. The news report claimed that hackers “were able to exploit the various levels of iOS security to gain access to private data including photos, passwords, encrypted messaging apps, and iMessage.
We learned also that Apple quickly swung to actions by patching up the vulnerabilities. After that, the problem subsided but it was evident that the scourge continued although at a slower pace. It was slow but the people who suffered from the scourge amounted to thousands per week.
However, left out of the challenge were Android users. They were in no way affected by the bad news iOS got. So, Android smartphone users relaxed because they were not hit. But there could also be a problem for Android smartphone users.
As far as hacking works, the perpetrators think phones and not the brand. From time to time, they get better at their trade. One thing to note is that iPhone users are expected to have money and more disposable income. So, targeting them for money will be understandable. If their intention is to steal data, hackers may not bother about iPhone users but general smartphone users, no matter the operating system that the phones have. What makes matters worse is that people often make use of both Android and iPhones. Hackers who need personal data will also be indiscriminate in their targets.
Hackers are sophisticated at what they do. Because the world has no idea how many hackers are out there and there’s not much anyone else is doing about fishing out hackers and stopping their work, except that people seem to get interested when the bad deed is done, no one is really interested in preventing hackers from hacking their phones and that is where the problem is.
What makes the problem worse is that there could be places where hackers are even selling their wares whether online or offline to people who want to get into the business of hacking other people’s smartphones.
Can you protect yourself? No one actually knows what type of passwords that hackers can’t hack when it comes to smartphone. In this case, it doesn’t really matter if your password is strong or not. The best way to keep safe will be not visiting a malicious webpage but how can you tell that a page is not malicious? If you’re very careful not to find malware, malware may find you somehow. If perchance you did, don’t type your password into the box because that could compromise all your passwords, especially if you use one – just one – for all your accounts on the phone. You may lose everything.
You can be careful but not very careful that you obsess about your phone being hacked. One thing stands. If iPhone has been hacked, it’s only a matter of time before the act will spread to other operating systems (that is if it hasn’t even started yet.)
To protect yourself, think about using such protection such as a two-level security for logging into any account where that is provided. That way, you can protect yourself not up to 100 percent but considerably doing what you can in a smartphone world in which everyone needs to play safe.
