How to protect your Samsung Galaxy from hacker attacks

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When was the last time you changed your passwords on social media platforms, the online banking app or your email provider? Has that been a long time? Then the Change-Your-Password-Day on February 1st would be the perfect opportunity to clean up the password jungle and to assign new, secure login information. This is the only way to protect your personal data, but also, for example, your profiles on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Co. from unauthorized access in the best possible way.

The ultimate checklist for protecting yourself from hackers:

Hackers nowadays often have an easy time of it, as many people unfortunately totally underestimate the subject of smartphone security when surfing the Internet. With the following article we would like to change that: We go into potential gateways for cyber criminals and give tips on how you can best protect yourself and your Samsung cell phone from hacker attacks. With the following measures you can secure your mobile phone as best as possible against unauthorized access:

• Installation of antivirus and firewall apps
• Use of secure passwords
• Avoid public WiFi hotspots
• Perform security updates regularly
• Installation of official apps
• Use of two-factor authentication
• Activation of the screen lock

Protection against viruses through firewall and antivirus software

1. Protection against viruses: Install firewall and antivirus software

Probably the most effective and at the same time simplest means of preventing unauthorized access is to install an antivirus app on the smartphone. Many antivirus apps use a virus scanner as standard to scan all files and applications on the phone and check them for harmful software or viruses. If you want to be on the safe side and want to spend money on anti-virus software, you get additional protection options such as real-time protection that detects spy apps in real time and initiates countermeasures immediately. If you consider how much money current flagship smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S21 cost and how long the device should work, then investing in paid antivirus software is always worthwhile.

The firewall is another security option that you can download as an app onto your smartphone to protect yourself against cyber attacks. The firewall monitors the network activities of all applications on the cell phone and intervenes if necessary to prevent a dangerous connection. Of course, the user retains control over the data stream on his smartphone.

Our Galaxy EXPERT tip:

Do you want to install an additional firewall app on your mobile phone? Remember that setting up such a firewall requires manual input in order not to block all existing applications at once. To keep your phone more secure you can also hire a hacker to check the phone and clean everything harmful.

2. Secure accounts: Protect data with secure and up-to-date passwords

123456, 1password, qwerty123 – the list of the most popular German passwords could go on and on. If you use one of these or similar passwords yourself, it will be easy for hackers to log into your user accounts. If you want to protect your accounts from unauthorized access, you should use secure passwords and update them at regular intervals. Basically: Use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters for passwords and keep the password separate from your smartphone. The note with passwords has absolutely no place in the cell phone case.

3. Secure networks: Avoid public WiFi hotspots

Public WiFi hotspots are everywhere these days: in shopping centers, hotels, bus stops, supermarkets or caf – public WiFi networks are extremely convenient, often free and, above all, they help you save on mobile data volume .

On the other hand, public WiFi hotspots are also a source of danger for your smartphone security: strangers can access your data or smuggle malware onto your smartphone via open WiFi networks.

You should therefore never make transfers via online banking or Samsung Pay in public WiFi networks! It is also important to avoid insecure data connections that are not protected by an HTTPS certificate.

Our Galaxy EXPERT tip:

In order to protect yourself and your own data as best as possible, it makes sense to use a VPN, i.e. a virtual private network. The VPN routes your smartphone connection to the network via a server, also changes the IP address and thus increases anonymity. The information transmitted through the VPN provider is encrypted, which makes the work of cyber criminals and hackers much more difficult.

VPN networks have free and paid providers, although the services and the level of protection sometimes differ considerably from one another. It is therefore worthwhile to look at the offers on the market in order to find the best smartphone protection for you.

Protection from hackers through the latest software

4. Current software: Carry out any necessary updates

At irregular intervals you will receive so-called security updates for the Galaxy cell phone from Samsung, which close a wide variety of security gaps and improve the virus protection of your smartphone. Alphabet and Google release security patches for their own Android operating system every month, which the smartphone manufacturers then have to adapt to the user interface of the respective model – a very costly and time-consuming matter. Conversely, this also means that the cheaper cell phones from unknown manufacturers only receive these updates irregularly, whereas well-known and established brands such as Samsung or Xiaomi carry out security updates at regular intervals.

Google is constantly working on further optimizations and improvements to the Android operating system. The company releases a new version of Android about once a year. The latest version is called Android 11 , which has replaced the previous version Android 10 . However, updates are also published regularly for the older operating system variants. Only when a version is actually ‘old’ is this version of the operating system no longer supplied with security updates.

5. Protection against hacker attacks: only install official apps

Another important point in terms of smartphone security are apps, more precisely the source for downloading and then installing the apps: Only download apps from the original storesor from Google Play and avoid all other platforms. The sources mentioned have a sophisticated test management for all applications that are available for download. Among other things, not only the developer of the app, but also the operator of the app as well as data protection criteria etc. are verified for legal issues. If you don’t follow this advice, hackers will have an easy time of it. You can then easily gain access to your Galaxy mobile phone by modifying the source code of popular apps and injecting malicious code with malware and viruses into them.

Deny Smith

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