Industry Updates

Keep Your iPhone Hack Proof

Keep_Your_IPhone_Hack_Pro_108688_201557Whatever tech gadgets a small business owner chooses, keeping your contacts and content secure should be a number one priority. Many consumers love the versatile features and quality of Apple products but worry about security. Keep your iPhone or iPad safe from hackers and other prying eyes by following a few simple steps.

Choosing a password that is hard to guess is imperative. The iOS 9 lock screen now defaults to a six-digit PIN requirement, instead of four, increasing the number of possible combinations for the minimum-length PIN. Be sure to choose a PIN or alpha-numeric password that you can remember but others won’t guess.

Another feature you may want to adjust the location settings so that all of your contacts on Facebook and Twitter cannot track your every move. Some people love having their whereabouts tracked, however many professionals do not want all of their contacts to know they are at the beach when waiting for their phone call to be returned. Privacy options are easy to configure on your iPhone or iPad. Just adjust the privacy settings if you want to use the location feature for tagging photos, viewing your local weather, tracking your fitness activity or using your GPS, but turn off this feature for contacts, and social media apps.

If your iPhone is stolen, the first thing a tech savvy thief will attempt to do on his way to the pawn shop is disable tracking by bringing up the Control Center and disabling GPS location. The best way to prevent this is to disable the Control Center on the lock screen. To do this, simply go to settings and select the Control Panel icon and then turn off the Lock Screen Access feature.

App-specific passcodes are considered by some to be a pain to use, but many have found the extra effort worth the increased security.

As with other devices that access the web, be sure to only use websites with https in their prefix instead of http. Downloading a virus or having your data stolen can undermine your security efforts and compromise the integrity of both you and your clients.