PTA raising awareness for general public to secure their mobile phones

In its move to raise awareness of the security and privacy issues faced by the millions of mobile phone users in the country, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has shared six useful tips to secure users’ mobile phones. This initiative is the part of the campaign that PTA started last week, where the authorities urged WhatsApp users to enable two-step verification.

The six tips that PTA shared are quite useful and are generally recommended by tech geeks and cyber-security experts around the world. Back in 2014, TechRadar — a global media outlet also issued 10 tips to secure mobile phone, however, this initiative by the telecom regulator of the country is a good decision in the right direction.

The six tips issued by PTA to secure your mobile phone are as follow:

1. Always Lock your mobile using a “Pin/Password” to avoid its misuse
2. Install Apps only from “trusted Apps stores”
3. Turn-off Bluetooth connection of the device when not in use
4. You must encrypt your data on internal and external media
5. Timely installs updates/ patches
6. Always use a VPN on public Wi-Fi / un-trusted network

Getting into the details of the points, above noted by PTA, it’s always the best solution to use PIN/ Password/ Pattern to lock your phone because other bio-metric technologies like the fingerprint scanner and facial recognition setup could be easily fooled or misused.

Moreover, the point that briefs the use of “trusted apps” means that one must always install apps from the Apple’s App Store or Google Play Store, other than these apps tend to be less secure. Meanwhile, Bluetooth can also present major security risks as this wire-less tech may connect you with unwanted networks. Therefore, it is recommended that Bluetooth must be turned off once used.

Installation of Android/ iOS security updates and security patches is quite important as they secure your phones and make them more invulnerable. Public Wifi hotspots have become one of the major sources of data misuse and the use of VPN to encrypt your connections sounds like an impressive idea.