Travelore Tips How to Protect Your Phone (And Identity) While Traveling

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Selfies two weeks in a row: This time, a reader who lost his phone on a plane, only to discover an airline employee with a penchant for self-directed camera testing.

Q: I was on an AeroMexico flight from Lima, Peru to Mexico City. I don't know whether my phone was stolen or if I accidentally left it on my seat, but as soon as I was aware it was missing, I went to the AeroMexico desk and alerted them to the problem. They searched the plane, but didn’t find it.

I have evidence it was found! My phone automatically uploads to the cloud. I’m attaching pictures of what appears to be an AeroMexico employee finding the phone and taking several other selfies. I have called and emailed AeroMexico numerous times without getting anywhere. I don’t want to cause any trouble. I only want my phone back. Can you help? *—Daniel P., Scottsdale, AZ*

A: That’s one way to locate a lost phone. At first blush, it puts a positive spin on the notion of personal tracking and surveillance. If we step back, however, perhaps it was a little too easy for the gentleman who found the phone to start using it for his own purposes. Also, it must have been a bit unsettling for Daniel to see a stranger in photos on his cloud account.

So what can you do to protect your phone while traveling? Here are a few suggestions from Verizon Wireless, many of which apply even when you’re at home:

• First, use a screen lock, especially if you set up your email and social networks to save your passwords. It might seem annoying to go through an extra step to use your phone, but a good password may help deter a thief and protect your personal information in the process. Be sure to avoid codes that are easy to guess (hint: “1234” is not secure). Or better yet, use your face: with Android’s “Ice Cream Sandwich,” you can unlock your phone using the built-in facial recognition software. iOS has different security measures depending on the device, which can include Touch ID (fingerprint) or the traditional pass code.

• Don’t break down built-in security. The full-customization options on your phone can be awfully tempting, but McAfee says when you circumvent security restrictions, you may make your phone vulnerable to worms, viruses, spyware, and Trojans that could wreak havoc on your phone’s operating system.

• Install a mobile security app and back up your data.

• Don’t click on suspicious links in spam emails, and don’t trust every app available for download.Check the reviews before you download to be sure others haven’t reported problems. Some may ask for permission to obtain personal information and stored passwords. Make sure you fully research the app before approving these requests. McAfee has found that 82% of apps read your device ID and 36% of apps know personal details such as your account information.

• It’s highly recommended you keep your phone updated with the latest operating system available, as it will have the most recent security features.

• Many phones allow you to put your owner info on the lock screen, so if you do lose your phone, it can be returned easily—make sure it’s something that won’t give thieves information you don’t want them to have; your name and a backup email and/or work phone number should be enough. If you can’t locate the feature on your device, there are apps that provide this functionality; search for “owner information on lock screen” and find one that works for you.

• If you do lose your phone while on vacation, contact your provider to have service suspended and discuss replacement options. When traveling outside the U.S., check with your provider beforehand to make sure you have the necessary international contact information.

• Verizon recommended its protection plan as well. Most companies offer one. There is also independent phone insurance. Read the fine print to make sure you’ll get the protection and service you want. Sometimes the deductible is high enough that the cost of the plan doesn't make sense, unless you want other bundled features such as additional tech support. GPS location services and the ability to wipe your phone remotely may be included, although there are apps that offer the same functionality.

While cloud storage services are a good way to share data across platforms and back it up, they probably aren't the best way to protect or recover your phone. In this case, Daniel got lucky and the photos worked. By the time I replied to his email a week after we received it, AeroMexico had responded. It recovered his phone and sent it to him. The fate of the employee is unknown, but let’s hope the next time he finds a phone it won’t be so easy for him to snap his own visage and inadvertently share it with the owner.

Contributed

 by Eric Jordan

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Travelore Tips: How To Protect Your Private Data While Traveling

 PrivateGiant’s Internet security, privacy tips keep travelers safe when they roam

Travelers often worry about flight delays, bad weather and disappointing accommodations when thinking about the factors that could ruin a vacation. However, the lack of secure Internet access revealing social media posts and haphazard habits online can wreak havoc lasting long after beach tans fade away. PrivateGiant CEO and security expert Shaun Murphy has created a series of tips travelers can use to help keep their personal information and private files safe while away from home.

Prep Before You Go

Patch Up. Packing, printing airline tickets and organizing maps are not the only to-do list items that need to be tended to before a vacation begins. Check all devices staying at home or going on the trip for software updates. Not running system updates is like putting out the welcome mat for cybercriminals. Operating system security holes that could have easily been patched with a quick click can leave you vulnerable to hacks.

Remove Data. Backing up is always important, but before you travel it is essential. Removing unnecessary sensitive data from your devices going on the trip including photos, videos, financial documents and stored passwords can save you from heartache and headaches down the road if your devices are breached, stolen or misplaced.

Wipe Your History. Clear your browser cache files and remove saved passwords. If you accidentally connect to an unsecure Wi-Fi network while travelling do not make it effortless for criminals to steal your private information such as bank access, work emails or photos.  

Fake It. Create temporary passwords for sites you plan on accessing while travelling. It is estimated that 60% of people use the same password, or a variation of one, for every account. If you get hacked while traveling, having a temporary “throwaway” password for email or social media will prevent a headache of worry over if your home accounts were compromised.   

While Travelling

Browse Safely. Make sure you are using a secured connection to websites when available. A simple “s” (https:// instead of http:// in your web browser's URL bar) will protect you from most threats local and remote. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a utility that will automatically use a secure connection for you. Learn more about it at https://www.eff.org/Https-everywhere.

Double Down. Enable two-factor authentication on your important web services (email, social media, etc.) so in the event that someone does gain access to your passwords they need a second code to get in. Guidelines for setting up two-factor authentication can be found at http://www.google.com/landing/2step/.
Privatize Wi-Fi. For additional security when using a Wi-Fi network at a hotel or airport, consider using a VPN on your laptop. A VPN creates an encrypted connection to a third-party server, and all your Internet traffic is routed through that server. Snoopers on the network will only see encrypted data.
Internet security

Share Wisely. While it is tempting to post about a vacation on social media or keep a blog about your adventures to stay in touch with family and friends, resist the urge. Every tidbit of information you publicly share online is a breadcrumb criminals can use to piece together a snapshot of your life that can lead to them to cracking your passwords and hacking your digital accounts.

Shut Down. Switch off the wireless connection on your phone, tablet and laptop when they are not in use. By keeping the connection off you are taking another step in protecting your digital identity, by preventing an opportunity for criminals to automatically connect to your device on an open network without you ever knowing what happened.

After Returning Home

Sweep Clean. Running a security sweep when you get home is a wise precaution. Check your computer and other devices for spyware, malware, and viruses. One indication that malware could be looking is an increase in memory use or data use that is otherwise inexplicable.

For more information about protecting your security and privacy online, visit: www.privategiant.com.

About PrivateGiant


PrivateGiant is a technology firm dedicated to restoring privacy to online communications for the individual and enterprises. Its easy-to-use solutions deliver top-level security protection for text messages, emails, and messages sent or posted on social media and other public forums. PrivateGiant protects everyday communications from the moment they are sent or posted until they reach the designated recipient for decoding. Visit www.privategiant.com for additional information.

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Travelore Tips: How Not To Pay the Price For Free Wi-Fi

Contributed by Stephanie Rosenbloom

THE GETAWAY

Part of globe-trotting nowadays is flitting from one free Wi-Fi network to the next. From hotel lobby to coffee shop to subway platform to park, each time we join a public network we put our personal information and privacy at risk. Yet few travelers are concerned enough to turn down free Wi-Fi. Rather, many of us hastily give away an email address in exchange for 15 minutes of free airport Internet access. 

So how to feed your addiction while also safeguarding your passwords and privacy? If you’re not going to abstain (and who is these days?), here are four rules for staying connected and (reasonably) safe while traveling. 

1. MAKE SURE THAT ANY SITE YOU VISIT HAS ‘HTTPS’ IN FRONT OF THE URL. Those five letters indicate that the page is encrypted, which prevents others from seeing what you’re doing. If you’re browsing the web in a Starbucks or any place with an open network and you do not see “https,” it’s possible that someone there with nefarious intentions can see the site you’re visiting and the exact pages you request on that site. 

“They can see that you’re connecting to Amazon and that you’re looking for remedial algebra books,” said Nadia Heninger, an assistant professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania. Indeed, the only part of an e-commerce site that may be encrypted is the page where you access your account information or enter your credit card number.

Sites like Gmail.com and Yahoo.com use “https” by default, but type your password into a web-based email site that does not use it and a third party could see (and steal) that password. This sort of eavesdropping is easier than you might think. There are a number of tools that allow anyone who downloads them to see all the data that flies back and forth between a browser and a web server, said Jason Hong, an associate professor at the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. 

Moreover, anyone can set up a Wi-Fi network for criminal purposes and give it a legitimate-sounding name. Say, for example, you’re in the Paris Métro and you join a free network that looks like an official city initiative. “You have no idea what Wi-Fi network that is,” Professor Heninger said. “It could be set up by a hacker.” And if he or she has malicious intentions, when you go to a popular site like Facebook you may actually be logging into a fake page that allows the hacker to steal your password. “It is surprisingly common,” Professor Heninger said.

But surely, using Wi-Fi at a hotel is safe, right? “That’s only marginally better,” Professor Hong said. On the bright side, he said it’s unlikely that a criminal would bother monitoring the hotel’s traffic for a few passwords because the cost-benefit is simply not there. That person would get a bigger payoff from phishing emails, Professor Hong said, in which the sender masquerades as a known source like your bank or credit card company to get sensitive information like your banking passwords.

Even so, protect your computer by ensuring that your web browsers are up-to-date. Turn on your firewall and turn off file sharing.

Continue reading the main story2. USE A VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK, OR VPN. If you work for a corporation, chances are you either already have one or have a technology department that can give you one. Using a VPN essentially encrypts all your online traffic, ensuring that no one can eavesdrop. It also routes that activity through whoever owns the VPN (your employer). So if, for example, I’m in a hotel in Japan using my VPN, all of my traffic gets sent to The New York Times’s servers and is then redirected again so it appears as if it is coming from The Times rather than from a hotel room in Japan. To access the VPN, users are typically given a name and a password and often also a constantly changing set of numbers on a fob that must be entered to access the network. Don’t have a VPN? There’s Tor, software that prevents third parties from seeing your location or the sites you visit. “It’s totally free and fairly easy to use,” said Professor Heninger, who uses Tor. The software can be downloaded at Torproject.org.

3. SIGN UP FOR TWO-STEP VERIFICATION. More and more sites — Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, WordPress — allow users to set up their accounts so that signing in requires two ways of proving who they are. The most common method requires a password you create plus a code that is sent to you — via text message or through a special app — each time you wish to sign in.

For instance, let’s say you logged onto a fake Facebook page and hackers captured your user name and password. If that happened without two-step verification (known on Facebook as “login approvals”), the hackers could access your account when you log off. If, however, you had enabled login approvals, even though your user name and password were captured, the hackers would not be able to log into your account because they wouldn’t receive the requisite code. Now, if you’re someone who uses the same password for everything, this is where you still run into trouble. Here’s why: If your user name and password for Facebook are the same as those for another website that does not have two-step verification, hackers might figure that out and break into your other accounts. Yes, I know, you can’t keep all your passwords straight. That’s why there are password managers like 1Password and LastPass, which can create and store long, unique passwords. 

4. BRING ONLY WHAT YOU NEED AND TURN OFF WHAT YOU’RE NOT USING. The latter goes for Wi-Fi and for Bluetooth. “It’s just another way to be compromised,” Professor Heninger said.

And don’t give away your email address or download an app in exchange for free Wi-Fi.

“Think about the recipient of that information,” she said. “You have no idea who set up that Wi-Fi network,” she continued, adding “You might have just downloaded an app that will download all your contacts.”  

When it comes to travel booking and organization apps, one security concern is how much of your personal information the app is sharing, and with whom. Professor Hong said that, in general, apps that charge a fee are better because they have a revenue model. Those that do not are more likely to sell your information. He added that whether they are free or not, apps are also a potential security risk because they do not always encrypt your data when communicating to Web servers.

If you’re seriously concerned about security, Professor Heninger suggests creating a special travel email address and password. And she recommends buying a “travel laptop” that you load with only the information you need.

Indeed, Professor Hong said he would worry more about the theft of your computer than your various passwords. He cited an incident in 2000 in which the laptop of the Qualcomm chief executive at the time, Irwin Jacobs, disappeared at a conference in Irvine, Calif. “He turned his back and the laptop was gone,” Professor Hong said.

Average travelers, he continued, should be just as mindful, if not more, of having their smartphone plucked from their hand by a thief on the street. 

“Attackers usually go for the easiest thing,” he said. “Don’t ever underestimate the power of snatch and grab.”