Your smartphone, your castle

Your smartphone is your castle, and its privacy is under assault at the front gate – and also at the back door.

At the front door, there is a never-ending stream of visitors passing through, taking an unapproved look at your private life when you hand around the phone to show pictures and share numbers. At the back door, there are men in suits squeezing in without an invitation.

This vulnerability from both the front and the back is fueling personal interest in the Apple vs. US Government debate. It’s about the security of our own little iPhone castles:  Am I locking the front door AND just who is trying to creep in the back?

The sad fact is that the front door on your iPhone is usually unlocked and kept wide open. Once it is open – and someone else has your phone in their hand – they have an open pass to virtually all corners of your iPhone. And, studies show that people keep an amazing amount of financial, private, and quite potentially damaging information on their phones.

The front entrance to the castle is your direct personal responsibility. Lock it. Get an app on your iPhone such as the Avira Vault that enables you to share information with your social circles, yet still put your private and financial information out of reach for the barbarians – or family members – at the gate.

Privacy is your right – and your responsibility. So do something about it.

Who is at the backdoor? The US government – and likely many others – are working on it. Securing the back is more complicated. At a minimum, go with an app developer such as Avira that values security more than backdoors and will not resell your data to the highest bidder. And remember, if the OS is cracked, everything else built on it is also accessible.