Securing your phone: what to actually set up

A phone today is not a telephone, it is a keyring to your whole life. Email, banking, photos, messages, sign-ins to everything. And yet you carry it in a pocket where it is easy to lose or have stolen. Despite that, most people have their phone secured worse than their front door. This article is a practical list of what to actually set up, without needless scaremongering.

It does not take all day. Most of these steps are a matter of a few minutes and together they make your phone a considerably harder target.

A proper screen lock is the basis of everything

If you do only one thing, make it this. The screen lock protects everything else, so it needs to be proper. A short four-digit PIN is not enough, use a longer PIN or password and add biometrics, a fingerprint or your face, for convenience.

Without a lock, one moment of setting the phone down or losing it and anyone has access to your email, banking and photos. With a lock, even a lost phone is just a piece of glass to whoever finds it. Also set automatic locking after a short spell of inactivity.

Turn on find-my-device remotely

You will appreciate this on the day you leave the phone somewhere or it is taken. Turn on the Find My Device feature on Android or Find My on iPhone. It lets you locate the device on a map, ring it remotely, lock it and, as a last resort, wipe its contents so the data does not fall into the wrong hands.

The key is to set it up in advance, while the phone is in your hand. Once you lose it, it is too late to turn it on. Which other two settings decide whether you actually find a lost phone we cover in the article on a lost phone: how to find it.

Turn updates on and let them run

Updates are not a nuisance, they are fixes for security holes attackers get in through. Turn on automatic updates for the system and apps and let them run. Why it pays not to postpone them we also cover in updates: why not to postpone them.

Older phones that no longer get updates become more and more vulnerable over time. If you have a very old model, that is one reason to consider a newer device.

Download sensibly and guard permissions

Install apps only from the official stores, the Play Store and the App Store. They have checks that catch most malicious apps. Downloading from elsewhere is one of the most common ways to let malware onto a phone.

And the second thing: guard permissions. Apps often ask for access to things they do not need to function, for example a game to your location and contacts. Go through the settings for which apps have access to the camera, microphone, location and contacts, and remove what does not make sense. Every needless permission is a privacy leak.

Two-factor verification and caution with links

Protect your most important accounts, like email and banking, with two-factor verification, so the password alone is not enough. We write more about it in the article on two-factor verification.

And finally, the most common attack today does not target the technology, but you. Scam texts and links posing as a bank, the post office or an authority are common. Do not click links from unexpected messages and do not enter sign-ins through them. How to spot them we show in the article on scam messages.

Before you sell or give the phone away

When getting rid of an old phone, do not just wipe it casually. First sign out of all accounts, especially your Google or Apple account, otherwise it may stay locked to your name and unusable for the buyer. Then do a factory reset.

On modern phones the data is encrypted, so after signing out and resetting it is inaccessible to the buyer. Just remember to back everything up first, so you do not send your memories away with the data.

When to leave it to us

You can handle most of these steps yourself in a few minutes, and we will be glad if this guide helps. But if you are not sure whether your phone is set up safely, or you suspect something is wrong with it, we will gladly go through it with you and secure it. And if you suspect a compromise, see the article on how to tell if your phone is hacked.

This article is part of our guide to cybersecurity.