Android users are growing gradually each day and the threat from the unknown is also increasing each day. It already been proved in the second quarter of 2011 that Apple iPhone operating system (OS) users are still miles apart in quantity from its biggest rival, the Android OS by more than 10 percent, followed by Blackberry OS and Windows Mobile. It has also been testified that the malware hazards that Android users are experiencing today is a couple folds more than the iPhone OS users. Interesting enough, Android users today are 2.5 times more favourably to encounter malicious softwares and files while downloading applications or surfing the internet than they were six months ago.
Seeing this disturbing facts, mobile phone users, regardless of OS they are using, must take actions to prevent them from becoming the victims of cybercrimes. First of all, they must check the source of whatever they are downloading into their phones, whether there are from verified and trusted sources or not. This is because the most popular way for malicious files to invade your phones is by downloading apps that are embedded with it. Look for the developer name or company, and make sure to search for reviews that have been made by the current users of the application whether it works properly or not.
If you are clicking hyperlinks that redirected you to a website that you are unsure of its reliability and usability, check the web links carefully and make sure that the web link matches on what it claims to be from the previous website you visited. This is to ensure that you do not leak any of your private and important information like your Paypal account and credit card number. There are also tonnes of mobile security tools available in the app store that let you check every app that you have downloaded whether it is safety to be used and some of them also have the ability to locate a missing device. Take premeasures like enabling password on your phones so that the data inside will not be extracted easily by the ones who stole it.
Sometimes, phones that are affected by malicious files will also show weird symptoms like unreadable text messages, slow mobile phone performance on processes and rapid decline of battery life. Be alert for all these symptoms and if you encounter any of them, it is safe to restore you phone a new one. Make regular backups on the data inside your phones so that it is easier for you to restore your phone. Make sure to download firmware updates as soon as they are available for your device.