Reveal Technology

Your phone holds your email, banking, photos, contacts, and saved logins. Yet many people protect it with a weak passcode or none at all.

A lost or stolen phone in the wrong hands is a serious problem.

Lock it down:
• Use a strong passcode, six digits or more, not 0000 or 1234.
• Enable fingerprint or face unlock for convenience plus security.
• Turn on automatic locking after a short idle time.
• Enable Find My Device so you can locate, lock, or wipe it remotely.
• Keep the operating system updated.
• Only install apps from official stores.

Also set up remote wipe before you ever need it. If your phone is gone for good, you can erase it from afar.

Treat your phone like the vault it is. A few settings now can save you from a major headache later.

Attackers register web addresses that look almost identical to the real thing. It is called typosquatting, and it is designed to catch a glance, not a careful read.

Examples of the trick:
• A zero in place of an O, or a 1 in place of an L.
• Extra words, like secure-yourbank-login.com.
• A different ending, such as .net instead of .com.

A fake site can copy a real one perfectly. If you log in there, you have just handed over your credentials.

How to protect yourself:
• Type important addresses yourself or use saved bookmarks.
• Do not trust links in emails or texts for logins.
• Check the address bar carefully before entering a password.
• Let your password manager autofill. It will refuse to fill on a fake domain, which is a useful warning sign.

Slow down at the login screen. That is exactly where attackers want you to rush.