Smartphone been stolen? Don’t panic, help is at hand.

Your mobile might be a treasure trove of apps, games and music, but in the wrong hands it’s also a mine of sensitive information with enough riches to fulfil a fraudster’s every wish.

Despite this, a surprising number of us do little to protect our devices in the event of loss or theft.

Fortunately, there are simple steps we can take to limit any financial inconvenience, and increase the likelihood of being reunited with our precious handset and its valuable data.


1. Use a screen lock

It might sound blindingly obvious, but a staggering number of us don’t set up a screen lock. It’s not as though we’re short of security options either, with devices offering one or more 4-digit PINs, Touch ID-like biometrics, shape-swiping, and even face and retina-recognition.

These aren’t technically fool-proof, but any security is better than none and will help defeat, slow down or deter many a casual phone thief.



2. Set up a SIM PIN

Even if you’re protected with a screen lock, fraudsters can eject the SIM from your smartphone and pop it into one of their own. Without a SIM PIN, bad guys can rack up substantial bills, taking a cut from calling premium rate numbers.

When enabled, a PIN is required every time your SIM is ejected and reinserted. A SIM PIN is simple to set up, the trickiest step is figuring out the default PIN for your network.

MTN default pin is 1234, For other networks you can phone up customer service to find out their default PIN.



3. Report to your network provider

If the worst happens and your phone does go missing, report it to your mobile network immediately. They have all your details, and can temporary lock or track the sim for you. That’s one of the reasons/importance of sim registration.



4. Register your device

Register your phone with the phone marker, and make sure that all the receipt you used while buying your phone are kept save.



5. Customise your lock screen

Let’s say you’ve left your phone on a bus. Fortunately for you, Honest John picks it up and is hell-bent on returning it to its rightful owner. However, as you’ve set up lock-screen security, poor John has no way of contacting you. Oh the irony.

The good news is that some handsets – notably those running Android and BlackBerry – allow you to customise your lock screen to include an owner information message, mobile number and address if you like. This will help the honest John to contact you.

Apple has yet to bake this facility directly into iOS, but, as somebody once said, there’s an app for that. In fact there are several, including If Found Lock Screen and ICE (In Case of Emergency).

Of course, if your phone runs out of battery, onscreen prompts are useless, so a low-tech alternative is simply to pop a sticker with an email address on the back of the phone or inside the case.



6. Use find-your-phone apps

For a while, Apple’s Find My iPhone app was one step ahead of Google and helped to reunite many an iPhone and iPhone owner.

These days, Android Device Manager does much the same for the Google side of the smartphone divide, and you can now simply type ‘Find my Phone’ into a nearby Google Omnibox (subject to you being signed-in to the same Google account on your phone and browser).

Besides helping to locate your phone, these apps will let you sound an alarm, leave an on-screen message, and even perform a remote wipe. Again, keep in mind that find-your-phone apps are only as good as your phone’s battery life, and the savvy phone thief won’t think twice about removing the SIM and powering it down to help keep it incognito.



7. Always back up your data

Just because your phone may end up on some underground auction site like olx or second hand phone dealer’s, it doesn’t mean your data has to go with it.

iOS users will be familiar with iCloud as a means of syncing and backing up their data, and although Apple could do with being more generous with its pricing structure, it is a seamless mechanism that just works.

Android Backup Service helps to sync application data and settings to your Google account. To configure this, simply go to Settings > Accounts > Backup and Reset and then ensure ‘Back up my data’ is checked.

Please share this important information with your friends and family.

More @ https://techmzy./2016/02/13/tips-how-to-survive-and-secure-your-informationdata-when-your-smartphone-goes-missing/

True true

nice one. Kip it up

Nice one

Nice one

emenas:
nice one. Kip it up