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How To Stay Safe Online When You’re Traveling

Travel can be a mind-opening and life-altering experience. Whether you’re traveling for business, for pleasure, or to visit your family in your hometown, it’s always great to get away from the drudgery of your daily routine to see new things and meet new people.
However, unfamiliar places can bring unfamiliar dangers. And while you’ve likely been told to not keep your valuables on your person in case you get mugged or to lock yourself in a small cabinet when visiting family so they can never find you again, the rules for safely using technology while you travel are a bit nebulous at times.
Never fear: we’ve got you covered. Here’s how to keep your personal information safe when visiting an unfamiliar — or all too familiar — locale.

Business travel

Wow — you’re important enough that it’s actually necessary for you go to a whole different city or country for work. Because you’re needed there. Ok. Are you Beyonce or something?!
Anyway business travel has its own set of risks and challenges, so here are some things to keep in mind.

  • Bring only what you need. Increasingly, security personnel at airports will look through devices to determine if their owner poses a security threat. And the risk of having something stolen is greater in unfamiliar environments. Bring the tools you need to safely work, but don’t bring anything you don’t absolutely need.
  • Keep your devices on you at all times. Yes, the danger of security going through your phone is real, but don’t check your work laptop that has all your company’s trade secrets. If one of your devices gets lost, then anyone who finds it will be able to hack into it and figure out when your next secret album is dropping. (You are Beyonce, aren’t you?!)
  • Don’t trust the Wi-Fi. This is always a solid tip, but especially important when you’re traveling for business. Never use unfamiliar public Wi-Fi to do official company business or any sensitive personal browsing. Doing so leaves you open to hacking, government surveillance, and increased risk of malware being installed on your device.
  • Use a VPN. If you’re traveling for business, all of your internet browsing should happen while connected to a VPN. Many companies require you to use a VPN to log into their networks while working, but if your company doesn’t, invest in one.
  • Consult your company’s IT department before you leave. Ask your IT department if there are any special considerations for working remotely in the country you’re visiting, unless your IT department is just three people sitting in a basement. Then just follow the tips above and also begin looking for a new job.

Personal travel

Wow — you’d rather explore the world than sit at home in your sad studio apartment with your cat. Because you want to. Ok.
When traveling for pleasure, you should bring only what you need, be wary of Wi-Fi, and keep all devices on your at all times, as mentioned above. Here are some additional tips for world explorers.

  • Wait until you get home to post pictures. It’s tempting to post all your sexy beach pics immediately to make others jealous, but it’s best to wait so you’re not advertising that your home is empty or giving away your location.
  • Don’t do any crimes online. If you do venture on the Wi-Fi, make sure you know that laws in the country you’re in. For instance, don’t go on adult sites in Cuba and don’t trash the government on social media in China — it won’t turn out well for you!
  • Password protect all your mobile devices. You should always have strong passwords in place for all your hardware and online accounts, but it’s particularly important when you’re traveling. Have strong passwords for hardware and two-factor authentication for all accounts.
  • Don’t swim with your phone in your pocket. This has nothing to do with online safety, it’s just better if you don’t.

Visiting your family in your hometown

Oh man — how’d you get tricked into visiting your hometown? Whether you’re home for the holidays or visiting your beloved family dog Sparky, your hometown is full of dangers

  • Stay in a hotel on the dark side of town. Do not reveal the location of this hotel to anyone. Pay in cash and use “Jon Bon Jovi” as a pseudonym.
  • Do not complain about your mom’s meatloaf on social media. Similar to complaining about the government in China, this will get you into big trouble.
  • Turn off all location-sharing capabilities on your phone, and make sure your phone isn’t set to automatically connect to Wi-Fi. Government agencies and your mom can use this information to track your location.
  • Whoops — your mom found you at your sketchy hotel because Jon Bon Jovi is a pretty obvious pseudonym. Grab Sparky and leave in the night.

Traveling can be a minefield of digital dangers, but as long as you exercise reasonable caution and refrain from using the pseudonym “Jon Bon Jovi,” you should have a safe trip. Bon Voyage, Beyonce!

How To Shop Safely On Black Friday And Cyber Monday

The time we’ve been waiting for all year is finally here: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are upon us. The holidays are the season for spending time with cherished family and friends, but Black Friday is much better because you get to buy new stuff. Friends and family move away, they get busy and can’t see you, but your new stuff will sit in your home with you until it has to be forklifted out to clear a path after you get trapped under a pile of 70% off Google Homes.

But the coming sales aren’t all fun and games. As the holiday shopping season ramps up, cyber criminals are also ramping up their activities. Here’s how you can protect yourself from being a victim of cybercrime this holiday season.

Don’t shop online in public

Seriously: the whole goal of online shopping is so you can sit in your house in your underwear and order as many pairs of Air Jordans as your credit card limit will allow. So why, in 2018, are people still leaving their houses to do this? Pro tip: being inside your house is always safer than not being inside your house. Additionally, sitting in a coffee shop while entering your credit card number will just leave you open to scammers looking over your shoulder, and they will also see that you decided a toaster would be a good gift for your mom. Additionally, using public WiFi to make purchases is not recommended: when possible, use your home WiFi or another trusted network. Also seriously, a toaster?!

Use sites you trust

Now is not the time to try anything fancy: go to the sites you know, and if you want to shop somewhere new and unfamiliar, research the company online to make sure it’s legitimate.

Make sure you use secure sites

You’ll want to use sites that use HTTPS instead of HTTP. Websites that have HTTPS in their URL will encrypt all information sent between your browser and the website. If this is too boring to remember (it is) just look for a little lock right beside the URL in your web address bar. Keep in mind that this is not a guarantee that the website is safe, but this does add an extra layer of security.

Check your bank statements regularly

Check your bank statement online, and check it often to ensure that no suspicious activity has transpired in any of your depleted accounts. Call your bank immediately if you notice something is off. And while it is highly suspicious that you bought an EZ Bake oven for yourself, that’s not the type of suspicious activity you’re looking for.

Do all that boring stuff we always tell you to do

Update your passwords regularly. Don’t use the same password twice. Ensure your computer’s software is up-to-date. Use anti-virus software. Don’t hand out your social security number like it’s Monica’s Christmas candy. Appreciate all Friends references.

Avoid using your credit card when possible

No, that doesn’t mean you should use debit. In fact, please don’t! But apps like Apple Pay are more secure, and many large retailers are now accepting Apple Pay through their apps. Many banks also offer virtual credit cards specifically for online transactions so that your real card number doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Unless the wrong hands are also your hands, in which case I cannot help you.

Don’t shop on websites using your mobile browser

It’s hard to see if they’re secure. Instead, use the retailer’s app. Yes, this means you must download yet another app as you’re hunched over your desk at work just trying to buy a pair of boots before anyone notices you haven’t sent the invoice you promised Cathy, but Cathy can wait. This is your online safety we’re talking about, Cathy!!

Don’t click on links

Type the website URL directly into your browser’s address bar instead of clicking on links sent to you through email, text, or other messaging apps. Scammers will often send emails or messages that look exactly like a retailer’s marketing materials, but these links will direct you to a fake website or install malware on your device.

Spend all your money!!!

Max out those credit cards and drain your accounts. If you have nothing to steal, scammers cannot steal from you. (This is obviously a joke – it’s important to spend wisely and make sure that you have money left over for food. Do you have money to buy me food? Just kidding. Unless you’re offering.)

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a great way to temporarily escape from the dreary prison of your life. Just make sure to follow these tips so you can ensure that you are the only one spending your money. Happy shopping!!

Do Your Apps Know Too Much About You?

Two years ago something incredible happened.

A simple computer game brought the world together and got gamers out and about into the big wide world. But after the immediate rush of excitement about “catching ‘em all”, users started to realize something a little more sinister about the Pokemon Go app.

As well as letting them throw imaginary Pokeballs in real-life locations, the iOS version of the app was caught accessing almost all of users’ Google account information – everything from emails down to photos.

Two years later, Mark Zuckerberg made a statement about the vague data collection techniques apps were using through Facebook. He was keen to iterate that Facebook does use sound clips from videos recorded directly onto Facebook to serve relevant ads after questions around this became louder and louder.

But his statement wasn’t exhaustive enough in covering what exactly our apps know about us.

This is because of the ambiguous nature of app permissions.

They tend to be oversimplified so as not to overwhelm the user, but below the simple sentences and soothing reassurances they can gather a huge amount of data with every single interaction.

Of course, some data collected is absolutely necessary for the apps to work in the first place. For example, a photo app won’t work if it can’t access your photos, and Uber needs your location information so it can pick you up in the right place – duh.

But once you give apps that need information access to your data, they can start to worm their way under the surface to dig out more and more information about you and your behavior.

Take location access as an example.

Once you give away your location, app makers are then able to use that information to figure out what floor of a high-rise you live on or the places you visit the most.

Why Apps Want Your Data

Data is gold for app makers. With information about their user base, apps can perform all sorts of other actions, like:

  • This is the key activity app makers do with the data they’ve gathered. Knowing everything about you means they can serve up relevant ads and charge advertisers more and more for being so highly targeted.
  • Curated content. This keeps users sticking around for more. If they’re seeing more of what they like, they’re more likely to engage with the content and keep coming back for more.
  • App development. Data can be really useful for knowing what users do and don’t like, which can be used in the future to improve the app or make another app altogether.

A whopping one-third of consumers don’t think advertisers collect data from them.

App Permissions: What Do Your Apps Know About You?

Now you know why your apps might want to scrape together the digital breadcrumbs of you, let’s take a look at what they actually know about you, because it can be easy to jump to conclusions and envision a Big Brother type scenario which often isn’t the case.

Your smartphone is actually packed full of sensors which can decipher your whereabouts, what speed you’re traveling at (including what form of transport you’re traveling on), and which way up you’re using your phone.

But you’re not completely powerless.

This is where app permissions come in, a.k.a. the “barrier” between app makers and the data stored in your phone. When a pop-up shows up on your phone with a permission request, it’s up to you to decide how much data you pour into the hands of the app maker.

However, this is easier said than done, and that’s because very few apps give detailed explanations about what information they’re going to collect and use.

Many app makers do this in the interest of their users; they don’t want to overwhelm them with technical drivel, so they keep it simple. But this means that a lot of users don’t actually know the full extent of what they’ve agreed to.

If you want to know exactly what an app can and can’t see about you, there’s a way.

On an Android device:

  • Open the settings app
  • Go to the Apps & Notifications center
  • Choose an app and click Permissions

On an iOS device:

  • Go to the Settings app
  • Choose an app
  • See the Permissions that are listed

On both kinds of devices, you can usually switch off permissions with a toggle button to pick and choose what data can and can’t be collected (though bear in mind that some apps need certain permissions in order to run).

And, though this is a good starting point to find out what your apps know about you, it doesn’t always give you the full story.

Take the incident with Uber recently, where it was discovered that the app was secretly recording screen activity on iPhones. The company hit back that this was to improve functionality with the Apple Watch app, but it just goes to show that even if you think you know what an app can find out about you, there might be something more sinister going on.

How Are Things Changing When It Comes to Apps and Data?

Phone providers are now cracking down on what app makers can and can’t do when it comes to permissions – particularly location permissions.

When requesting location access, app makers now have to adhere to the “only when using the app” rule, which means they can’t track users when they’re not inside the app.

But while control settings are getting tighter, they’re also getting more and more convoluted. App makers are starting to bundle permission choices together and still aren’t quite there with letting their users know exactly what they’ll be using data for.

Apps that require users to “unlock” a particular permission in order to use the app as it’s supposed to be used are doing so without giving away whether they might share it with marketers and advertisers too.

What it boils down to is this: people have every right to choose what they do and don’t want apps to access, but there’s not much they can do if the app in question needs their location or access to their photos to work as they’re supposed to.

In these instances, it’s up to the user to decide whether they want to continue to use the app or give it up entirely.

And, until app makers get clearer with what they use data for, many users will remain in the dark about what data app companies are collecting about them and what they’re doing with that information.

A Beginner’s Guide to Staying Safe Online

Every week it seems a new security breach is hitting the headlines so we can be forgiven for thinking the online world is a dangerous place.

Earlier this year, Facebook was lambasted for sharing user data with third party apps, while those with Androids were shocked to learn that their mobile was tracking their every move thanks to built-in location tracking tacked onto Maps and Photos.

And then there was the Amazon Echo incident, where customers realized their every interaction was being gathered together to build a case about who they are and their shopping habits.

So yes, we’d be forgiven for thinking the online world is a scary place.

Sure, the internet has impacted our lives in amazing ways, but there is a dark side just like with everything else.

But because we’ve been so eager to dip our toes into the countless benefits that the internet brings (being able to communicate with anyone, anywhere is pretty priceless), we’ve lost some of our personal privacy along the way. It’s kind of an exchange – we let you do this in exchange for this information about yourself.

This isn’t about to stop anytime soon.

We like the freedom to contact someone on the other side of the world with the click of a button. We like being able to next-day-deliver something we’ve coveted for all of five minutes. We like being able to read our favorite news stories without having to shell out for a hard copy.

Handing over our data for online freedom is the price we pay. Everything we do on the web leaves a digital trail that can be swept up and used by corporations and governments.

The problem is in the transparency of it all. Legalese in tiny fonts that are unreadable with the naked eye pull the wool over users’ eyes. We want to sign up to Twitter so we can see what everyone’s saying about the latest celebrity scandal, so we blindly tick the “yes” box without really agreeing to have our data scraped through and sold on for who knows what purpose.

Giving away even the tiniest snippets of data about yourself can leave you at risk from less-than-stellar companies, but there are steps you can take to limit how much data is siphoned from your internet activity.

If you’re not tech savvy and don’t know how to navigate the ins and outs of the World Wide Web, let us help you out.

Encrypt Your Email

Email is not going anywhere anytime soon. In 2017, more than 270 billion emails were sent, a number that’s set to increase to 320 billion by 2020.

We hear all the time about email accounts getting hacked, and this form of online communication has been hailed as the absolute worst for security. This is because a single email message gets passed around several different servers before it reaches its final destination.

You can keep the content of your messages private with encryption. Some email providers already offer this as standard, but for others you might need to download an add-on or a plugin. When it comes to the metadata that accompanies your emails though (the sender, receiver, time stamps etc), there’s nothing you can do as the internet routing system needs this information to do its job.

Hide Your History

We often get sucked into a wormhole on the internet and find ourselves knee deep in cute cat videos when all we wanted was to find a review for the new washing machine we’ve got our eye on.

It’s hard to believe that anyone would be interested in the meandering trail we took to get to the cat videos, but this information can be used by companies to know what sites we visit the most and how we get from one to the other.

This log of sites you visit is known as your “clickstream”, and you can take a look right now at the online journey you’ve taken over the past day by simply clicking “History” and then “Full Browsing History” when your browser is open.

This information isn’t private unless you always browse the web in Incognito mode so the sites don’t retain your Cookies (watch the video below to understand what Cookies are), or to download a free tool that obscures your clickstream.

Video:

Get Savvy with Your Social

It always seems to be social media sites hitting the headlines with privacy concerns (we’re looking at you, Facebook), and that’s because social channels are filled with a bounty of information about their users; from date of birth to restaurants you regularly check into and your closest friends, these sites literally have an incredible low-down on you.

But again, it’s the price we pay to stay in the loop and to share filtered pics with our nearest and dearest.

The best advice here for eliminating any chance of your data being scraped and used elsewhere is to delete all of your social media accounts.

If that seems too drastic, give yourself peace of mind by having your accounts on the highest security settings possible (here’s a great guide to help you do that) and leaving out any identifying information like your date of birth or your home town.

We can’t control what others post on social media (and sometimes they’ll post stuff about us that disappears into the ether), but we can control what we hand over to the grasping hands of big corporations.

Leave Your Location Out of It

There’s something thrilling about checking into a new place, whether we’re humblebragging about visiting the latest high-end restaurant or simply want people to know that we’re Out There Having Fun.

But location data can be incredibly valuable if it falls into the right hands.

Think about it: not only are you providing information about where you are and what you’re doing there, you’re handing over data like what time of day you like to do that activity, and you’re even giving nearby locations the chance to target you with ads while you’re in the vicinity.

The answer here is simple: turn off your location when you don’t need it and avoid using sites that require you to “check in” or need location information.

Other Things You Can Do

Encrypting your email, being elusive with your social media information, and avoiding the lure of “checking in” are good starting points for protecting your online data privacy.

But, taking it further, you can ensure that your password across everything is not something that can easily be guessed. Instead of having a password, go for a passphrase that is made up of multiple words, numbers, and symbols.

And, when it comes to your search engine habits, be ruthless.

Many of the big search engines make a note of your searches and build a profile of you to serve up relevant ads. If you want to avoid this, you need to avoid the big guys and instead use a search engine that doesn’t track your every search term (the oddly-named DuckDuckGo is good for this).

Protecting online data is a big concern for most internet users, but for the tech-phobic it can be truly terrifying, especially if you don’t even know how to start protecting yourself.

Hopefully these tips will point you in the right direction and help you get your privacy back under control, pronto.

The Growth of Privacy – VPNs and Beyond

We all expect to have our private matters kept away from the prying eyes of strangers. Recent years have seen a flurry of wild reports on the grapevine, from federal agencies spying on telephonic conversations to personal data being stolen from the cloud and used for unintended means. As far fetched as they may seem to the average personal internet user, many of them are true.

The gravity of the situation truly came to light in 2017 when the US Congress and Senate approved the decision to remove privacy protection for internet users. This was no doubt backed by corporate powerhouses looking to sell and buy data. USA, the land of dreams, fell prey to prying and spying, and was criticized by many for selling out the privacy of its own citizens.

In the thick of things: Telcos

Telecommunication companies, or telcos, are right at the center of the storm. Increasingly under scrutiny due to the rapid increase in cellular users, these companies actively trade-off between the multipolar attraction of user privacy, revenues off data sharing, and network exploitation.

Verizon is one of four cellular service providers who have agreed to halt the selling of user location to data brokers.  This is a direct result of increasing pressure from regulators to protect cell phone users.

However, regardless of the role that Telcos eventually adopt, users too are adopting safe measures for the protection of their data. The data security market is expected to be worth $22.85 billion by 2020. As for today, there are an array of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and personalised solutions to the classic problems of privacy.

With this in mind, we thought it would pertinent to give a 101 of the most popular option; one that helps create a virtual bubble to protect our privacy from prying eyes.

What are VPNs?

VPNs are rapidly gaining popularity with both corporations and individuals.

The term stands for Virtual Private Network and basically allows users:

  • to access private networks securely
  • remotely share data through public networks.

In other words, it allows an individual / firm to protect their identity, and data, from unauthorized users online.

What VPNs do

  • They secure sensitive data online and during transfer/use.
  • They encrypt data – even if data gets stolen, encryption makes it of little use to the average hacker.
  • Bypassing of content filters becomes possible; this can be godsend in countries such as China, where whole stratas of the internet are blocked due to stringent internet policies.
  • Data can be shared for an extended period.
  • You can browse the web in complete anonymity. Continuing from the Chinese example above, you would not want the government to go through your ‘How to launch an Arab Spring’ reading list.
  • Implementation of a VPN system increases bandwidth and efficiency.

Given all the benefits of VPNs, it does come to mind that the setting up and running of a VPN would be a complicated process. Surprisingly, with the help of COTS solutions, it is as simple as typing in a password and username. VPNs work on the basis of protocols that are constantly being upgraded and improved. The most common are:

  1. PPTP

PPTP stands for Point to Point Tunneling Protocol and has been around since the 1990s. PPTP works by encapsulating the data pocket rather than encrypting the information. This particular system owes its popularity to its adaptability towards almost every operating system. With the advent of stronger and more secure protocols, the credibility of PPTP has been called into question. It is still a strong VPN, just not the most secure option available.

  1. L2TP/IPsec

L2TP and IPsec are actually two different protocols that are often used in combination. This is because pairing the two adds their most coveted properties together to form a reinforced security. L2TP is unable to encrypt data so it generates a secure tunnel, while simultaneously IPsec takes charge of encryption channel security as well as data integrity to ensure that the channel of communication remains uncompromised.

  1. Open VPN

Open VPN has gained immense popularity. This is largely due to the fact that it is freely available and thus the cost factor, which might otherwise weigh heavily, is completely eradicated.

Treasuring your Privacy

Data protection can be expensive: most good data privacy services cost a good deal of money. Here are some tips to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.

  • KillSwitch works to ensure that the data remains safe in case the connection drops.
    There are two main types; one blocks internet traffic in case the VPN drops while the other shuts down applications.
  • Use P2P servers to download torrents.
  • Make sure the settings of the VPN are set to protect against any data leaks.
  • Use the VPN service diligently on your mobile phones, especially when visiting countries with strict data theft records, such as China and the UAE.

VPNs have multitudes of benefits that have been mentioned above. However, like every other thing, they also have disadvantages.

  • With rising awareness about the threats to  personal privacy comes a larger demand for VPNs. Wherever there will be an increased demand for a particular service, it gives corporations the incentive to step in and exploit that demand through commercialization.
  • Free VPNs are opted for by most – since they are free, of course. However, “free” VPNs that are used to access blocked sites and such often allow or fall prey to malicious third parties. Even more regrettable is the fact that many of these popular solutions may come with their own set of adware and spyware, thereby granting the developer access to sensitive information.

In the grand scheme of things, many individuals consider the loss of their data inconsequential: “what would anyone achieve by accessing our personal information?” Despite the growth of the privacy industry, this fatal error is not so uncommon. Businesses, on the other hand, with decades of lessons learned behind them, are unlikely to make the same mistake.

Reference Links

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/07/10/the-future-of-the-vpn-market/#22a967602e4d

https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2017/03/29/the-upcoming-spread-of-vpns/#423a6b4679a3

https://gizmodo.com/5990192/vpns-what-they-do-how-they-work-and-why-youre-dumb-for-not-using-one

https://www.ibvpn.com/2010/02/8-advantages-of-using-vpn/

Read This Before Downloading That New App

Last year, the total number of mobile app downloads worldwide was calculated to be 178.1 billion.

And that number is only expected to go up this year, as more and more apps continue to show up on the market and draw our attention.

In fact, with over 5.8 million apps available to download today, you’ve probably had a lot of conversations about that amazing thing you can do on your phone because of a new app.

But have you discussed the safety of those apps you’ve been downloading, and whether or not the data on your phone is still secure?

“Using Apps Safely” might sound like a boring topic—I mean, come on, who cares about that when they’re busy taking a quiz to find out which Disney princess they are—but it’s extremely important for every user to be aware of and informed about the potential dangers of some of the apps on today’s market.

Every new app should pass certain criteria before being downloaded. And there is a huge reason why.

Read This Before Downloading That New App

Apps Cultivate Data

App safety isn’t exactly a new discussion topic, but it’s one that isn’t always taken seriously. Today’s apps are new and exciting and full of promises. You can do practically anything with one—from important things like locking your front door…

…to really important things like proving you’re a true Game of Thrones fan with a Hodor keyboard (really).

But with every app you use, it cultivates more data.

What’s more, mobile marketing is making a bigger appearance because businesses are fully aware of the monetary potential that apps now carry. And this means that the data we cultivate while using our various apps is becoming more and more desirable.

How much data do we cultivate while using apps?

Think about it: We live with our phones connected to our hands; we communicate with friends and coworkers, we answer emails, we track our health, we calculate our caloric input, we shop for clothes, we keep tabs on our bank accounts… we even let our devices memorize our faces.

Just last year, Statista calculated that app users spent 77% of their valuable time on their three most-frequented apps.

Read This Before Downloading That New App

That’s a lot of time spent on apps, and a lot of data created while using them. For marketers, it means a gold mine of monetary potential.

Read This Before Downloading That New App

Using Apps = Making Money

As we open our various apps, make in-app purchases, and tap on one link after another, some companies are tracking our behavior because it gives them a better picture of who we are and what motivates us to click “buy.”

This is why we have to pay attention to the integrity of every app we download. Some companies are sneaky about the data they collect and how they handle the data that they collect. It’s valuable stuff, and there’s a lot of it, so they’ve figured out an easy way to get what they want without you catching on—which is through their apps.

And that, of course, means our data privacy concerns need to extend into the world of apps.

So if we know the potential danger of downloading an untrustworthy app, then why are so many everyday users careless about which ones they download?

I mean, you wouldn’t let just anybody into your house to rifle through your closet, read your mail, browse through your personal journals, and then use that information to make money, right? So why would you allow an app to essentially do the same thing to the data on your phone?

The answer to that is this: the ease and excitement of downloading a new app far outweigh any potential threats that the app might pose.

Because of this, many of us tap the download button without giving a second thought to the app’s safety and then suffer the consequences of having downloaded a “Trojan” app—one that hides a brutal invasion.

Suddenly, we go from operating our phone to holding a data-laden device in our hands that’s being operated by hackers.

But here’s the good news: you can learn to spot a potentially malicious app before it harms you.

And you can feel more confident about the safety of your apps by checking certain things before tapping that download button. It’s easy to enjoy the benefits of some of those amazing apps out there if we just learn how to perceive whether an app is safe or not.

So, before you download anything new, make sure to run that app past a few safety checkpoints to ensure that it upholds data safety practices.

It’s easy to enjoy the benefits of some of those amazing apps out there if we just learn how to perceive whether an app is safe or not.

Read This Before Downloading That New App

4 Checkpoints An App Should Pass Before Downloading

Imagine it’s a Sunday afternoon, it’s raining, everyone you know is too busy for you, and even your dog doesn’t want to look at you. You’re bored—and you want to download that cool new app and figure out all the incredible stuff it does.

If you’re bored out of your mind, you might be tempted to throw caution to the wind and hit “download” without a second thought.

But before you do that, remember that you like your data better when it’s not being exploited—so take a few minutes and double-check to see if that new app can pass these 4 safety checkpoints.

Checkpoint One: The Integrity of the App’s Marketplace

Where is that app coming from? The best route to take when downloading an app is to start from a reputable market source. Read through their privacy policies and whether or not they hold their developers accountable to their strict policies (for example, here are Apple’s developer guidelines and Google’s policy for developers). Reputable marketplaces will have strict privacy policies and guidelines and have a history of expelling violators.

Checkpoint Two: The Reviews

Read the reviews. Are the ratings high, or at least reasonable? Did any reviewers mention that they downloaded the app and were invaded by malware? Or, does every single review seem positive and fake? Some app developers will hire people to leave fake reviews in order to boost their ratings. Take some time to read through a good mix of the app’s reviews and evaluate whether it seems safe or not.

Checkpoint Three:  The Company

Does the company that created the app seem safe and reputable, or does it seem questionable? Go to the company’s website and read about their history, maybe find out about their team, and see if they are a legitimate company and not some clueless app tinkerer trying to throw bad apps into the mix. Trustworthy companies aren’t going to risk their business by putting out a nasty app.

Checkpoint Four: The Privacy Policy

Before ever allowing an app to take up space on your device, take the time (I know it doesn’t sound fun, but trust me, it’s worth it) to read the company’s privacy policy in order to learn exactly WHAT information they plan on acquiring and HOW they plan to use that information.

A lot of untrustworthy apps have questionable policies that fly under the radar because most people don’t want to bother with taking the time to read through its technical lingo. Don’t let this tactic get you—read through the policy and find out whether that app will be accessing data and selling it to third parties or using it in other ways for monetary gain.

Essentially, any new app you’re checking out should come packaged with a privacy policy that you can trust your data with and that is clear and honest about its intentions.

(In fact, if you want to see an example of a solid policy right now, check out the AXEL privacy policy. We’re kind of proud of it.)

Read This Before Downloading That New App

Happy App-ing

There are plenty of bad apps out there that you will want to avoid, but there are also plenty of really awesome apps out there that might actually transform the way you do things in the best possible way.

It’s up to you to be aware of the benefits and dangers of today’s apps and to assess whether the one you’re about to download will protect your private data or put it at risk.

And remember: although there are some app developers out there who want to hack your data with their invasive app, there are also a large number of trustworthy developers out there who know how to combine innovative tools with strong privacy protection.

So don’t worry—you can have fun and do amazing things on your phone while also protecting your data.