How to protect your smartphone from surveillance, viruses and wiretapping | Articles | Phones

Recent­ly, peo­ple are con­cerned about the secu­ri­ty of their data and are not sure about the reli­a­bil­i­ty of smart­phones. They strive to pro­tect their files and impor­tant infor­ma­tion. We have com­piled a list of use­ful appli­ca­tions that will help pro­tect your phone from virus­es, wire­tap­ping, and sur­veil­lance. All infor­ma­tion is cur­rent at the time of writ­ing.

To pro­tect your smart­phone from mal­ware and virus­es, you need to use spe­cial appli­ca­tions. Pho­to: seogift.ru

How to pro­tect your phone from ads and virus­es
Adblock­er Brows­er
Adblock Plus for Safari
How to pro­tect your child’s phone from adult con­tent
Kid Secu­ri­ty
How to pro­tect per­son­al infor­ma­tion with built-in smart­phone fea­tures
For Android
For iOS
How to encrypt files and apps on your phone
App Lock on Android by InShot Inc
Fold­er Lock for iPhone
How to secure your phone from snoop­ing
Mas­ter VPN
How to pro­tect your­self from wire­tap­ping your phone
sig­nal
Wickr Me
Spy­ware Pro­tec­tion — McAfee Secu­ri­ty

How to protect your phone from ads and viruses

Adblocker Browser

This is a mobile brows­er with a built-in ad block­er. What is this func­tion for? Due to the abun­dance of adver­tis­ing on sites, the pages them­selves load more slow­ly, net­work traf­fic increas­es, and the bat­tery runs out faster (on aver­age by 20%).

In addi­tion, pop-up ads can turn out to be not just an ad with a tempt­ing offer, but also a spy app or mal­ware in dis­guise.

If a user delib­er­ate­ly or acci­den­tal­ly clicks on such an ad, then this mali­cious file can get onto the device.

A mobile brows­er with a clear inter­face that allows you to get rid of annoy­ing ads. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

As a result, smart­phone per­for­mance will be sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced, appli­ca­tions may not open, and data (about geolo­ca­tion, con­tacts, appli­ca­tions used, etc.) may be trans­ferred to intrud­ers.

Adblock Brows­er helps you get rid of intru­sive ads and pro­tects your pri­va­cy.

The paid ver­sion is dis­tin­guished by the pres­ence of a dark theme, the abil­i­ty to set a pin code for the appli­ca­tion and a built-in vpn. It costs from 260 rubles per month.

Adblock Plus for Safari

Sim­i­lar app for iOS. It’s free and auto­mat­i­cal­ly built into the Safari brows­er. With the appli­ca­tion, you can pro­tect your­self from:

• mali­cious virus­es;
• intru­sive adver­tis­ing;
• save traf­fic and bat­tery pow­er (because they will not be spent on adver­tis­ing).

How to protect your child’s phone from adult content

Most smart­phones have Parental Con­trol.

For Android phones this is imple­ment­ed through Google’s Fam­i­ly Link. You can link your account to your child’s account. As a result, the par­ent can:

• give per­mis­sion to down­load appli­ca­tions;
• see how much time the child spends in each of the appli­ca­tions;
• remote­ly block the phone;
• track loca­tion.

The app is locat­ed in Set­tings. Just go to the “Dig­i­tal Well­be­ing and Parental Con­trols” tab (may be called sim­ply “Parental Con­trols”). You just need to click “Set­up” and then step by step con­nect first the chil­dren’s account, then your own, acti­vate all the set­tings.

Set­ting up Parental Con­trol is easy. Each step is accom­pa­nied by prompts from the sys­tem. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

On iPhone there is also a built-in func­tion, only it is called “Screen Time”. You can find the tab you need in Set­tings.

Can:

• pro­hib­it pur­chas­es in iTunes and the App­Store;
• mark the allowed appli­ca­tions that will be avail­able to the child;
• lim­it web con­tent, avail­able books, games;
• set dai­ly lim­its for app cat­e­gories.

But if the built-in appli­ca­tions are not enough, you can install an addi­tion­al one.

Kid Security

Paid app for Android and iOS. It is installed on the par­en­t’s phone, and Tigro chat is installed on the child’s phone.

In the free ver­sion on any oper­at­ing sys­tem, you can:

• track loca­tion;
• receive an SOS sig­nal from the child.

Kid Secu­ri­ty app is bright, beau­ti­ful and clear. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

In the paid ver­sion you can:

• view the his­to­ry of move­ment;
• give a loud beep to the child’s phone if you can­not find it;
• lis­ten to what is hap­pen­ing near the smart­phone (does not work on iOS);
• find out how much time the child spends on appli­ca­tions on the phone (does not work on iOS — both func­tions are dis­abled at the request of Apple, as they can be used for covert sur­veil­lance);
• cre­ate loca­tions. For exam­ple, you can set the loca­tion “School”. As soon as the child enters the loca­tion or leaves it, the par­ent receives a sig­nal.

The cost of paid ser­vices starts from 69 rubles (the cheap­est is min­utes of wire­tap­ping). You can find out the lat­est infor­ma­tion about the appli­ca­tion, con­tact the devel­op­ers through the offi­cial web­site.

How to protect personal information with built-in smartphone features

For Android

Many Android phones have a built-in abil­i­ty to pro­tect some appli­ca­tions. For exam­ple, Xiao­mi Red­mi 9C offers to pro­tect 12 (in our case) appli­ca­tions using a spe­cial cipher.

To enable this fea­ture, you need:

• go to Set­tings;
• go to Appli­ca­tions;
• select Appli­ca­tion pro­tec­tion;
• click “Enable”;
• tick the appli­ca­tions that need to be encrypt­ed;
• come up with a graph­ic key and con­firm it;
• it is bet­ter to link mi account — it will be pos­si­ble to recov­er the pass­word in case of loss.

How App Pro­tec­tion works on Xiao­mi. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

Now the entrance to all select­ed appli­ca­tions will occur only after enter­ing a spe­cial pat­tern.

For iOS

iOS does not have a sim­i­lar built-in func­tion. But to pro­tect your data, you can:

• use a graph­ic pass­word or Touch ID when log­ging into the device;
• set up two-fac­tor ver­i­fi­ca­tion on all appli­ca­tions that are on the phone. For exam­ple, on iCloud (“Sys­tem Set­tings” — “Account Infor­ma­tion” — “Secu­ri­ty” — “Enable two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion”);
• choose what infor­ma­tion will be avail­able to appli­ca­tions. For exam­ple, if this is a pho­to edi­tor, then you do not need to give him access to the phone book, calls or geolo­ca­tion.

The last two points are also rel­e­vant for Android users.

How to encrypt files and apps on your phone

App Lock on Android by InShot Inc

A free Android app that allows you to encrypt con­tent on your phone. This means that it will not be pos­si­ble to open select­ed appli­ca­tions (for exam­ple: Gallery, SMS, Call Log, What­sApp, etc.) with­out a spe­cial pass­word. The pass­word is cho­sen and set by the own­er of the phone.

You can choose one of three pass­word options: unlock via fin­ger­print, via a graph­ic shape or a pin code. Once a per­son selects an option, they need to ver­i­fy the fin­ger­print, shape, or pass­word. After that, the pro­gram prompts you to select appli­ca­tions that will be encrypt­ed.

A handy appli­ca­tion that will allow you to block impor­tant pro­grams from strangers. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

Now every time you need to open this appli­ca­tion, you have to put your fin­ger, draw a shape or enter a pin code. The fin­ger­print unlock fea­ture is only avail­able if your phone has one.

Folder Lock for iPhone

Sim­i­lar app for iOS. Its pecu­liar­i­ty is that it allows you not only to set a pass­word for the nec­es­sary fold­ers, but to trans­fer them to the appli­ca­tion itself. And already it can be blocked using a PIN code, a pic­ture pass­word, a fin­ger­print, Face ID.

The appli­ca­tion allows you to store:

• pho­to and video files;
• data from bank cards;
• dri­ver’s license details;
• pass­words from social net­works;
• encrypt­ed notes.

There is an inter­nal encrypt­ed brows­er that can be accessed through the appli­ca­tion.

Of the minus­es: there is no Russ­ian lan­guage, the inter­face is in Eng­lish, there is adver­tis­ing. The sec­ond draw­back is solved by pur­chas­ing a paid ver­sion, which costs 400 rubles (for­ev­er).

How to secure your phone from snooping

If a per­son wants to pro­vide a secure, encrypt­ed con­nec­tion to the net­work, he uses a VPN. This allows you to main­tain pri­va­cy and bypass local restric­tions. We have already described in detail how to con­nect VPN on a com­put­er, tablet and smart­phone in anoth­er arti­cle. Today we will talk about anoth­er appli­ca­tion for Android and iOS.

Master VPN

A sim­ple appli­ca­tion with clear con­trols. There are 10 loca­tions avail­able in the free ver­sion. The design of the appli­ca­tion is stan­dard — on the main screen there is a con­nec­tion but­ton. Set­tings, serv­er selec­tion, per­son­al data are hid­den in the side menu.

What’s includ­ed in the paid ver­sion:

• instal­la­tion on 5 devices;
• Inter­net speed is 10 times faster than in the free ver­sion;
• lack of adver­tis­ing;
• more avail­able servers.

Month­ly sub­scrip­tion price — from 1,500 rubles, annu­al — from 4,800 rubles.

VPN, which even in the free ver­sion does an excel­lent job. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

How to protect yourself from wiretapping your phone

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there are no appli­ca­tions that pro­tect the device from wire­tap­ping. And peo­ple all over the world reg­u­lar­ly face the prob­lem of wire­tap­ping phones. It is impos­si­ble to com­plete­ly lim­it your­self from this, but it is pos­si­ble to reduce the risk.

Here are some tips:

• install only offi­cial appli­ca­tions. From App­Store or Google App;
• do not give per­mis­sions (for exam­ple, access to a micro­phone) just like that, if they are not need­ed for the nor­mal oper­a­tion of the util­i­ty;
• dis­able auto­mat­ic updates;
• turn off appli­ca­tions that are run­ning in the back­ground;
• use appli­ca­tions to pro­tect against spy­ware (we will talk about one of them in the next block);
• use secure mes­sen­gers that real­ly care about the pri­va­cy of their users. We will now briefly dis­cuss some of them.

signal

Mes­sen­ger, which is sup­port­ed by the lead­ers of the tech world: Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey (co-founder of Twit­ter), Edward Snow­den (for­mer CIA and US Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency) and oth­ers.

A sim­ple, user-friend­ly and under­stand­able appli­ca­tion that uses the excel­lent Sig­nal Pro­to­col encryp­tion pro­to­col. It is so good that oth­er com­pa­nies use pro­to­cols based on it (like What­sApp).

An appli­ca­tion with the most sim­ple inter­face and sophis­ti­cat­ed design. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

Advan­tages:

• free;
• self-destruc­t­ing mes­sages (the user him­self choos­es whether they will be destroyed or not);
• end-to-end encryp­tion;
• no IP address entry;
• pub­lish trans­par­ent secu­ri­ty audit reports.

Flaws:

• no two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion.

Wickr Me

The com­pa­ny’s prod­uct line includes paid and free appli­ca­tions for pri­vate users and com­pa­nies. In this case, we are talk­ing about the free ver­sion for indi­vid­u­als.

Advan­tages:

• the appli­ca­tion pro­hibits tak­ing screen­shots;
• end-to-end encryp­tion on the client side. Encryp­tion algo­rithms: AES 256, ECDH521 and RSA 4096 with per­fect for­ward secre­cy (PFS);
• no IP address entry;
• pub­lish trans­par­ent secu­ri­ty audit reports.

Flaws:

• self-destruc­t­ing mes­sages (the user does not have the abil­i­ty to dis­able this fea­ture. They will be destroyed any­way. You can only choose how long they will be delet­ed).

Spyware Protection — McAfee Security

Pro­gram for iOS and Android. Paid (from 2,900 rubles per year), there is a tri­al peri­od for 30 days.

What is includ­ed:

• VPN pro­tec­tion — encryp­tion of infor­ma­tion about the user’s loca­tion;
• pro­tec­tion against virus­es and spy­ware. If there is a threat of down­load­ing spy­ware, the pro­gram warns about it;
• there is a built-in func­tion for search­ing and remov­ing virus­es on a smart­phone;
• track­ing appli­ca­tions that may share per­son­al data with third-par­ty ser­vices;
• block­ing dan­ger­ous sites, links, files in the brows­er used;
• Wi-Fi secu­ri­ty check. If the smart­phone tries to con­nect to an inse­cure net­work, the appli­ca­tion will not allow such a con­nec­tion.

Paid appli­ca­tion for com­pre­hen­sive smart­phone pro­tec­tion with a pleas­ant inter­face. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert