Your phone or tablet got hacked - what’s the worst that could happen?
Hackers may disclose all your secrets
Hackers know that your phone or tablet have a lot of personal information. They want to steal your information and sell it to someone else. They may also want to blackmail you with your secrets. Most people have some secret numbers, pictures, history, or files on their phones. Hackers can steal or lock them so you can’t use your phone. They would demand money otherwise they would send your secret photos or messages to your spouse, boss, kids or to social media.
You may lose money or property
E-wallets store payment information inside smartphone apps. People don’t have to carry real credit or debit cards. That gives hackers another reason to target phones. Often, they offer fake mobile payment apps. This way hackers have the information they need to steal money from your cards. People use their phones to speak to loved ones, discuss business plans, talk about their travels. This is all personal, sensitive, and intimate content. Criminals want to break in and listen. They want to know when you are not at home so they can rob your house or steal your car. They also love recording juicy details about you.
You may have to pay ransom if you want your phone back
Hackers can make your photos, music, addresses, contacts, messages, email, or calendar on the phone, on the tablet, or on the computer unusable until you pay a ransom to unlock them. Your phone may never work properly again even after you pay.
Your phone may become totally damaged
Hackers feel they’ve accomplished a goal by causing chaos for victims. One way to do that is to make the phone overheat and ultimately ruin it. Security researchers warned that hackers could break into a phone’s processor and make it work for their own tasks. One of those tasks is calculating or “mining” cryptocurrency. In addition to making the phone slow down, it can also cause the phone to get too hot or even blow up!
You could go to jail
Your phone may work against your country if you work for the government.
Hacked mobile devices could help enemies get into the government systems. They can also get sensitive information or access other critical systems. If they gain control of the electricity, water supply, nuclear energy, or transportation, they can harm a lot of people.
Cybercriminals know that politicians talk to people through social media. Hackers could damage the trust in the politicians with fake posts on social media.
How to stay protected
These examples show that hackers have many ways to harm us through our phones. One easy way to protect against attacks is to avoid unofficial app stores and only download content from the official stores like Google Play or iTunes. However, threat actors can penetrate those platforms too and post infected apps.
Watch your phone statistics, such as battery life and the number of running apps. If those are too strange, they could have been hacked.
Run a mobile antivirus scan at least monthly. Install a security-monitoring program from official vendor sites.
Be careful when you download new apps. Check out what other users say first to make sure they are safe.
Don’t follow strange pop-ups or redirects in a phone’s browser. Don’t click on random icons. When in doubt, stop using the phone and get some answers. Don’t let hackers harm you, your company, or your country.