Currently, criminals steal devices to carry out economic crimes that range from making purchases through apps to requesting consumer loans online.
For more than a year, due to the global Covid pandemic, companies from various fields have promoted – more than ever – the performance of online errands, whether it be purchases, bill payments, financial procedures, among others.
And, to a large extent, it has been seen how smartphones have played a fundamental role in this aspect, becoming in most cases the main communication tool at a personal and work level.
“Smartphones are like our wallets, or rather, our mobile bank, in them we have a large amount of information, be it personal data; financial with preloaded credit cards in various app’s; through them we make payments and transfers, among others, but about 80% of the devices do not have any type of technological protection against cyber attacks or cyber fraud”comment Rene CaracciCountry Manager of NovaRed.
This new reality has been transformed into new opportunities for criminals, who have found in it formulas to carry out their mission. On the one hand, cybercriminals take advantage of the situation by carrying out cyber fraud such as phishing attacks, malware, among others, to thus steal sensitive and confidential information from users.
On the other hand, there are face-to-face crimes. If before, criminals stole smartphones in order to resell the equipment, in recent times -and every day more- it has been seen how their new objective is to carry out economic crimes linked to access to these, such as the use of installed applications. to make purchases; pay bills; request cash advances, among others.
What is worrying is that, according to figures from the Police, only in the Metropolitan Region an average of 22 complaints of cell phone thefts are received daily, which corresponds to more than 650 crimes of this type per month.
What to do if your cell phone is stolen?
It is important to always report to the appropriate authorities. Likewise, debit and/or credit cards must be blocked through financial institutions.
Last but not least, it is essential to block the equipment by handing over to the company
service provider company the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identiy) number of the device. “The IMEI corresponds to a 15-digit figure that is like your rut or fingerprint, it is unique for each device and allows, among other things, to be able to block it in case of theft”Caracci explains.
But, how to get the IMEI of a device? code can be dialed *#06# on the phone keypad and the number will be automatically displayed on the screen. Another way is to access “settings” and go to the option “about of the phone” where the number can be found. One last option is to look under the battery, where there should be a sticker with the number printed on it.
How to protect the cell phone?
We know that physical theft of equipment is not the only way for criminals to gain access to people’s sensitive information.
In fact, Chile has established itself as one of the Latin American countries most likely to be victims of cyberattacks.
According to figures from NovaRed, during 2020 and triggered by the health crisis, computer crimes in our country increased by 60% compared to the previous year. In fact, phishing-type attacks alone increased by 360% and ransomware-type attacks by 210%.
That is why experts emphasize the importance of technologically protecting mobile devices to avoid being victims of a crime.
Among the most important recommendations are: having antivirus, antimalware and antiphishing installed on the device; keep the equipment with an access code, preferably with a fingerprint or PIN, rather than the use of patterns.
Download applications from official sites and established stores and ideally not charge credit cards in any of the apps installed on the device, but if we are forced to do so, be sure that the use for payments requires a second level of authentication.
Now, in the event that the device is stolen and, considering that most of the keys that a user has can be recovered through emails that criminals easily access because they are generally open sessions, the experts They recommend as essential to have multi-factor authentication (MFA) methods.
These correspond to security systems that require more than one form of authentication to verify the legitimacy of a transaction.
“Put more simply, an MFA combines two or more credentials considering what one ‘knows’ (passwords); what one ‘possesses’ (security token or coordinate cards) and what one ‘is’ (biometric verification such as fingerprint, eye iris, tone of voice, etc.)”clarifies the specialist.