With smartphones everywhere and fetching high prices on the street, unfortunately smartphone theft is becoming more popular than ever before. But you have a lot more to worry about than someone selling your phone since you probably store a lot of sensitive info on your smartphone including financial information, credit card or social security numbers, private email correspondence, photos and more. Additionally, many social media apps like Twitter and Facebook don’t prompt for a password every time they launch so a thief could easily gain access to your social accounts and spam your network or use that information to get more details about you. Think about your email access as well, and what someone could do with access to your full list of contacts and your email archive.

Your first line of defense is to set a passcode on your device. I consider this advice non-negotiable. If you own a smartphone, you have to set a passcode, no questions asked. Yes, I know it can be a little annoying, but without a passcode a thief can access your full phone the second they steal it. Read More