And you… Trust your smartphone?

Before it was said that man's best friend is a dog, but today it seems that our best friend is a smartphone, which can be our best companion or our worst threat. How much do you trust yours?

Once it was said that "a dog is man's best friend"; however, today it seems that our best friend is a smartphone. It's the first thing we check when we wake up, the last thing we see before going to bed. In reality, they are a marvel: they provide us with instant communication, entertain us, give us real-time information, and even share the gossip of our closest people, which means we spend 24 hours a day with them constantly checking them. In fact, studies show that many of us would prefer to lose our wallet rather than lose our smartphone.

According to the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission of the US, Julius Genachowski, "today in the world there are more people with a smartphone than people with access to electricity and clean water." However, it must be understood that this great companion has its dark side. For example: If a virus were to enter your computer today, it could damage your hard drive and even obtain information without your permission. However, with a smartphone, the damage can go much further than that, affecting you personally. If a person, corporation, or government wanted to harm you, they could obtain all your contacts, know your activities with the calendar, know your location in real-time, read your emails, and even post on your social networks on your behalf. It's not to be fatalistic, but smartphones, and especially many of the applications on smartphones, leave the door open for our information to be misused. Around 79% of Apps have access to your information, and 96% of free Apps share information with third parties, and very few use encryption. The interesting thing to analyze is that we also cannot live without smartphones since they improve our lives so much and provide us with so much value.

A few days ago, I had a very interesting conversation with Domingo Guerra, a Mexican who has proudly made it big in Silicon Valley, being the founder and CEO of Appthority, a global leader in mobile application security. In 2012, Appthority won as the most innovative company at the RSA conference (the world's largest security conference), where they raised $6 million in investment. "Phone applications can bring a lot of risk; most applications no longer come from trusted companies. It is not known who developed them, for what purpose, from which country, and what permissions they are asking for," says Guerra. That is why Domingo gives us the following advice to protect ourselves and our companies:

• We must start learning more about computer security; we must understand how to encrypt and protect information. This should not only be of interest to systems people, and it is not as complicated as it sounds.
• It is mandatory to have a password on the phone, something more difficult than the typical 1234.
• We must generate a culture of protection in companies.
• Install a "MDM" (Mobile Device Management) to know what the applications are doing.
• In the case of companies, the systems departments should have usage rules and train their executives. "You have to talk to employees who have confidential information. It is important that they understand that a smartphone is also a computer and that they have risks."
• A little paranoia is good. "Do not save things that could harm us, do not save photos that could harm our person."
• If you are not an expert, seek advice. Ignoring the problem will not make the problem disappear.
• As we invest more in connectivity technologies, we have to invest more in security because the risks are greater.

As mentioned in previous articles in Forbes Mexico, digital espionage is a $300 billion industry and growing exponentially. It is clear that all technologies have great advantages and their great threats. A smartphone can be our best companion and our worst threat. Because of all this, I ask you, esteemed reader, how much do you trust your smartphone?