Mobile Device Security | Cyber Awareness Training

tyson -

Cyber awareness training is a way to educate individuals on the best practices to help protect themselves and their companies against cyber threats.

Training examples can include:

Phishing simulation
Social engineering
Password management
Incident response
Data protection
Security policy and compliance

Resources:

IBM - What is mobile security

ACSC - Guidelines for enterprise mobility

Victoria Police - Mobile device security

Android - Mobile security

Mobile device security refers to the protection of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, from various types of cyber threats, such as malware, data breaches, and unauthorised access.

There is many areas of mobile security which need to be touch on and constant training needs to take place to ensure your employees are up to date with the latest threats and security practices.

Areas of training and security standards include:

  • Use of strong passwords
  • Keeping software and apps up to date
  • Avoid public Wi-Fi
  • Two-factor authentication or MFA
  • Use encryption
  • Back up data
  • Disable unused features and apps
Photo by Alejandro Mendoza

Two points of training I want to touch on is public Wi-Fi and Disabling unused features and apps.

Avoid public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi networks are often unsecured, meaning that cyber criminals can intercept and view the data transmitted over the network. Types of attacks include packet sniffing, man in the middle, phishing and malware infection.

Ways to combat this include:

Use a Virtual Private Network which creates a secure, encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet.

Organise Wi-Fi hotspots to use if you know you are going to be traveling or out on the road. This will help prevent the need for employees to connect to cafe, airport or street Wi-Fi.

Disable Wi-Fi auto-connect, devices can automatically connect to known Wi-Fi networks, which can be a security risk.

Disabling unused features and apps

It is important to disable features and apps that are not essential to your device's functionality to minimize the attack surface of your device.

Bluetooth: Other devices can connect to your Bluetooth without your input. Like all of these examples, disable it until it is needed to be used.

NFC: If you do not use NFC for contactless payments or other purposes, disable it.

Location services: I recommend to disable them to protect your privacy. It is not hard to turn it back on for use of maps.

Unused apps: Apps that you no longer use can still have access to your data and can be a security risk. Regularly review your installed apps and disable any that you no longer use.

At the very least this will help improve performance and battery life.