How to keep your smartphone safe from spying
This post discusses four personas, the technical threats to them and their information via their smartphone, and some theory on how to defend against an increasingly capable and focused threat actors.
If you find yourself matching one of these personas, following the rec ommendations below may serve you well if you feel that is proportionate to your individual threat profile. If you provide IT or cybersecurity services to other people who may fit these personas, double check that what you offer and how you offer it is proportionate to the threats you’re helping to protect them from. Hopefully you have all of our recommendations covered!
This is definitely not an exhaustive guide and is developed based on article(s) linked and our combined years working in technology and cyber security.
The capability of threat actors and the probability of targeting varies enormously from indiscriminate sms/email phishing through to individual targeting using commercial spyware such as NSO Group’s Pegasus, ‘zero day’ exploits and physical tampering of the device. The level of effort and complexity rapidly increases, as do the inconveniences of trying to deter, defend and limit the impact of such attacks.
