5 New Year resolutions to ensure our Smartphones #StayProtected in 2018

The smartphone is slowly turning to our centre of the universe. So much so that our life is becoming well & truly mobile-centric. We go about our daily lives with this power device in our pockets knowing fully well that our driver-on-call, pizza deliverer, personal photographer, Munshi Ji, secretary – in fact, our own life is just at the tap of a screen away. But with bigger screens & investments, come bigger risks, where the loss or damage of our loved device, can cause serious disruptions in our day-to-day lives.

So here are 5 New Year resolutions for 2018 for our smartphone device- de- amour

1. Create Data backups

Create backups and then create backups for those backups, because data is the backbone of our world today.  Having duplicate copies of our most important information saved in a remote location keeps it safe in case anything went wrong with our device. Cloud backups are one of the best options as it automatically saves our most important data online. Apps like Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud etc are some of the easier ways to get started. Try uploading that 200mb+ video onto one of them & see how easy it is to access it across devices.

2. Use a password manager

“123456” & “password” are probably the 2 most common passwords in this world.  Most of us end up having one or two common passwords for all our accounts and devices, which makes us a sitting duck for the hackers. For the smarter ones among our species, we may think of clever permutations, but end up hitting the “Forgot my Password” one too many times. Quite irritating when we are trying to get it done with quick & easy.

This New Year let’s take up a resolution to put some extra effort in securing our privacy. So unless you are Alex Mullen (World Memory Champion), do consider a Password Manager to store all your complex permutations securely. DashLane is a great tool which can help in organizing your passwords

3. Protection from damage and theft

We've all been there. With each drop or splash, we cross our fingers and hope that our smartphones remain functional after everything we put them through. However, accidents are often unavoidable and phones can get damaged in a number of different ways, with our without our tempered glasses & Bulky “Crashproof” covers. Not even going into the zone of how much time & efforts it takes to get it fixed & the huge costs involved therein.

But do we really do enough to protect our huge investments? Protection and Assistance service providers like OneAssist design their plans to assist customers when their lives get disrupted due to damage or theft of their mobile. Feels good to outsource our worries for once by getting such a plan right away.

4. Download program updates

As the year is updating itself, it is essential that we keep our gadgets up to date. The goal is to discover and fix flaws before malicious hackers can take an advantage of them. Even if an app update doesn't introduce many new features, and is just "improvements and bug fixes," it's still worth a download; it could prevent your device from being hacked, and prevent your data from being shared with the world.

5. Opt for right Antivirus

Right from WannaCry ransomware of May to Xafecopy Trojan of September 2017 was a year full of Viruses and malware that were out to crash your peace of mind. One cannot predict the future, but what he can do is be prepared for future threats and Antivirus is the best way of securing privacy. Antivirus protection is key to keeping out malicious software that can slow your gadget or expose your most sensitive data whether you use a Computer or a Smartphone. Take a resolution of considering the pros of an antivirus, paid or free that’s your choice.