Almost 10% of smartphone users had their phone lost or stolen in the last 12 months, according to a survey conducted by Eset ahead of the Mobile World Congress being held in Barcelona.
What’s more, 29% of respondents don’t lock their smartphones, and almost 20% do not backup content on their smartphone at all. Meanwhile, 35,7% back up sometimes, with 14,7% doing so daily, 19,9% weekly and 10% monthly).
The survey, carried out among about 500 smartphone users on social media, aimed to gather data on mobile security.
Carey van Vlaanderen, CEO of ESET Southern Africa, points out that one of the best ways to protect access to business networks, as well as personal e-mails is to use two-factor authentication.
This can be especially important for services like online banking which is accessed by 53% of surveyed users.
One of the best protection tools against physical breaches of phones is locking the device. However, 29,3% do not lock their phone or screen against unwanted access at all with the vast majority – 55,3% – doing so with a PIN number (12,5% use fingerprint and 3% face detector).
Fortunately, 64,9% of respondents do use some form of second authentication for online services.
Saving and securing data in the cloud was also highlighted, with 26,9% of those surveyed already using cloud only services and 23,1% saving the data both locally and in the cloud.
