It’s strange! But its true that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has asked his citizens to turn off their mobile phones daily for 5-10 minutes to combat cyber threats and risks associated to attacks. The suggestion was made after the Nation’s leader was provided a briefing on how to a 5-minute turn-off a smart phone for every 24 hours can help them minimize risk of the device being hacked.
“You can do it while brushing your teeth or while bathing or at least during or after your bed time. But it works and was proven in practical by the National Security Agency (NSA)”, said Mr. Albanese.
Security experts suggest that phony apps often run in the background and collect data and transit to remote servers. If the infected device is switched off for a certain period, the operations of such apps will be forcibly shut down and will take time to persist, at times taking hours or days for the mechanism to restart its activity as it makes the hacker work harder with their notorious activities.
Earlier, security professionals urged their customers to restart their phones once or twice a day. But now they are asking them to switch off their device for at least 5-10 minutes as it helps in blocking the apps that transmit info to adversaries.
How to know the phone is infected?
Whether it’s an Android or iPhone, there is not such device in the world that cannot be hacked. Although, both the manufactures are working hard to deliver security from the operating core, its never a foolproof try!
Unusual data consumption, excess battery drain, poor performance of the device, apps taking a lot of time to start, restarts happening 2-3 times a day, ad pop-ups, money drain from wallets and outgoing calls and messages that you aren’t aware and mysterious search history on the mobile search engine always indicate that the device has been infected.
So, how to block such activities?
1. Keep your phone connected to 4G or 5G network instead of a Public Wi-Fi while roaming.
2. Never download apps from online resources, except the app store
3. Keep it protected with an anti-malware solution
4. Never browse a-rated sites or games
5. Switch off your phone for 10 minutes on a daily note.
6. Never charge the device from public charging posts such as transit stations
7. Keep your in-car entertainment system free from malware
8. Never click on email or message links sent by unknown callers or senders
9. Last, keep your phone updated with the latest software and relative updates
