Software : In depth: Five steps to keep your Android phone secure |
- In depth: Five steps to keep your Android phone secure
- Google buys enterprise BYOD firm Divide
- Updated: 10 best office apps for Android
| In depth: Five steps to keep your Android phone secure Posted:  IntroductionYou have in your pockets a snooper's best friend. You take it everywhere: from your office to your bedroom, from the dining room to the lavatory (and hopefully clean it after). It records almost everything you do and can be made to turn against you in a matter of minutes. Believe it or not, the modern day smartphone is a private citizen's worst privacy nightmare. Think about what you have in there: email addresses and phone numbers from your contacts, calendar appointments, photos, and probably even personal financial information. On top of that, smartphones can continually track your location to build a detailed profile of your whereabouts. But just because it can doesn't mean you have to let it. Here's five simple steps you can take to control your smartphone security and keep your data, and life, private: 1. Manage your appsTo enjoy all the conveniences of a smartphone you need apps. Unfortunately, apps are the weakest link between your private data and the world. Many access your personal data to 'enhance their experience', leaving you to trust that they will only use this data in a desirable way. Unfortunately, not every app clearly states how they use this information. But there are ways to find out what your app knows about you and to restrict them. A critical component of your Android smartphone is the permissions system. When you install an app, it notifies you of what it would like to gain access to. You can then install the app, or not. Unfortunately, this system puts a lot of responsibility on the users to know whether these access requests are appropriate.
Fortunately there are multiple ways of visualising app permissions. BitDefender's free Clueful will scan your apps and categorise them as high risk, moderate risk, and low risk. You can then browse each list and click on an app to find out the features it can access. You should uninstall any High Risk apps as they might be pinching your passwords or reading emails. There's also Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware mobile app, which scans apps and divides them into categories based on the phone feature they have access to, such as your calendar or contacts, giving you full transparency on what your apps are up to. 2. Protect yourself onlineIn addition to preventing apps from leaking info, you should also minimise the personal data you put out there, even when sharing something as innocuous as images. Images can reveal a lot of information about you thanks to the exchangeable image file format (EXIF) data attached to them. If you take an image with a GPS-enabled camera or a smartphone it can reveal your location, the time it was taken, as well as the unique ID of the device. To strip EXIF information from pictures before sharing them you can use Instant EXIF Remover. This app doesn't have an interface, instead once installed it'll be available as an option in the 'Share' action. When selected, the app will intercept any images you wish to share and delete all EXIF data, before passing them on to the email client or any other sharing app.
After securing your images it's time to take control of your web browsing activities. Just like any desktop web browser you can install a variety of add-ons to your Android browser. The Phony add-on can be used to customise the user-agent on the browser and hide the fact that you are on a mobile device. Then there's Self-Destructing Cookies add-on, which will automatically delete all cookies when you close a site. For more comprehensive control you can use the CleanQuit add-on, which removes all information about the previous session including the browsing & download history and site preferences. If you want full anonymity, you should switch to the Orweb browser. It's loaded with plugins to disguise your device, gives you control over cookies, prevents loading of Flash content and keeps no browsing history. However, it requires the Orbot plugin and Orbot is Tor for Android, which may not be something you wish to install. Protect your communications, device and data3. Control your communicationsYou can encrypt SMS messages with the open source app TextSecure, which can encrypt SMS stored locally on your phone. However, to send encrypted messages over the air, the recipient must also have TextSecure or they'll receive unencrypted messages. Before you can send messages you'll have to create a secure connection with the recipient's device by exchanging keys. TextSecure will send a message to the recipient, whose TextSecure app will automatically respond with a message to establish a secure connection. From then on you send and receive encrypted messages. To keep your calls safe you can use free RedPhone app for free, which makes encrypted calls over the internet. There's also SilentPhone, which is developed by Phil Zimmerman (who gave us OpenPGP for securing email and ZRTP protocol for securing VoIP calls). The SilentPhone app works on multiple mobile platforms but comes with a $10 (about £6) subscription fee. Both these solutions create encrypted calls. However the person at the other end of the line must be using the same app.
To encrypt email messages on your mobile device you need the Android Privacy Guard (APG) app, which is an open source implementation of OpenPGP. You'll also need the K-9 email app, which integrates seamlessly with APG. To use these apps, first launch K-9 and configure it to connect to your email server. Then launch APG and tap the menu button, which brings up the option to manage private keys and public keys. You can export these keys from the desktop and import them into APG. Once the keys are imported, K-9 will display the option to sign and encrypt messages when you write a new email. Conversely it will let you decrypt emails when you receive a new encrypted message. For encrypting instant messages, you'll need the open source ChatSecure app. The app uses the OTR protocol to enable secure chat sessions over XMPP accounts. Using the app you can have secure chats with your friends over popular networks including Google Talk and Facebook on any OTR compatible client including Pidgin, Adium, and Jitsi. 4. Secure your deviceLocking your phone is one thing, but it doesn't help when you want to hand over an unlocked device to someone but still keep some things private. You can use Screen Locker to lock your screen before handing the phone to someone else. The app disables all forms of inputs and prevents the users from viewing anything other than what's on the screen. You can then enter a preset pattern to unlock the device. Privacy Master Free will lock access to apps and can also fake a crash to prevent an app from launching. You can also block the task manager as well as USB connections.
AppLock app has, along with the ability to block access to apps, two separate vaults where you can hide photos and videos. The app can also prevent toggling of settings such as WiFi. One of the best features is its ability to create lock profiles. So you can create a list of apps you want to lock when you in the office, and another set when you're with the kids. You can trigger the locks based on time or location. Applock can also randomly rearrange its numeric keyboard to prevent others from figuring out your password by following your fingers. It also allows you to hide the app from the application drawer to keep its existence on your device a secret. 5. Encrypt your dataThe key to securing your phone against any sort of surveillance is end-to-end encryption. Encryption safeguards data against any kind of snooping by making it unintelligible to anyone without the correct decryption keys. However, there are some caveats involved with the process. For one, encryption is a one-way process, which is to say that once turned on there's no mechanism to turn off the encryption. You'll have to reset your phone to factory settings and lose all your data. Make sure you securely back up your data before initiating the encryption process and don't interrupt the process - if you do you'll lose the data and render the device unusable.
When using the standard Android encryption service make sure you have already set up a lock screen PIN or password. Android will use it as your decryption key. To begin encryption, head to System Settings > Security > Encrypt device. When it's done you'll have to enter the PIN or password each time you boot your phone. Instead of encrypting the whole device, you can also choose to encrypt selected files. One of the best apps for this purpose is SSE Universal Encryption. The app has three modules: the Password Vault module allows you to safely store passwords and organise them into folders. The Message Encryptor module encrypts snippets of text. But the most interesting option is the File/Dir Encryptor module. It lets you pick a file using the built-in file browser and then encrypts it. |
| Google buys enterprise BYOD firm Divide Posted:  Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) firm Divide has announced that it is joining Google. The company's platform allows users to separate personal and business data on the same mobile device, using a containerized approach, giving IT administrators access to manage the business side of things. Divide is available on both Android and iOS. It offers a free basic package that gives users a split workspace and tools to manage the app and a more sophisticated package that costs $60 per user per year that provides tools for IT managers. Previous fundingThe company has twice been funded by Google Ventures, once in a 2011 Series A round of funding in which it secured $11 million from Comcast Ventures and Qualcomm and more recently in 2013 when Google Ventures led a $12 million Series B round of funding. October's funding was earmarked to accelerate growth and develop partnerships with companies such as IBM, Vodafone, Verizon and Tangoe. "We're thrilled to announce that Divide is joining Google," the firm said in an announcement on its website. "The company was founded with a simple mission: Give people the best mobile experience at work. As part of the Android team, we're excited to continue developing solutions that our users love." In its announcement, Divide thanked its supporters who have used the service and provided feedback and assured customers that the platform would continue to operate as usual. Financial terms of the deal have not been announced. |
| Updated: 10 best office apps for Android Posted:  10 best Android office appsWe all know how versatile and powerful today's smartphones are, with numerous games and apps showing off their fun sides. But what about the boring stuff? What about when you really need to edit potentially libellous statements out of a Word document in a hurry? Android has a wealth of productivity tools at its disposal, ranging from free and simple text editors and "to do" lists up to impressively feature-packed and rather costly suites of document management apps that promise PowerPoint and Excel editing on your mobile. Official options are a little lacking, though. There's no proper version of Open Office on Android, for example, while rival smartphone maker Microsoft has been a little reluctant and oddly rather slow to launch any official MS Office apps on Android as well. Fortunately for business-minded users, Android has many third-party options offering similar collections of fully compatible office apps, optical character readers, scanners and converters, all ready to let you use your phone for something a little more useful than moaning on Twitter all day. So here are our 10 Android office apps so you can make your phone work a bit harder. 1. Google Drive
The new name for what we used to know as Google Docs, Google Drive now packs in so much more than it used to. Yes, you still get access to your cloud-synced Google Docs files and the same clever collaborative editing tools, only now it's combined with Google's own locker service. This means your docs, photos, assorted digital files and everything is all contained inside the one swish app. Plus it's all automatically saved to Google's servers for easy access on other computers, phones, internet fridges, watches, smartglasses etc. 2. Quickoffice
One of the big changes on the doing-serious-stuff side of Android came about in the summer of 2012, when Google revealed it had bought popular Android productivity suite Quickoffice. It quickly removed the tool's paid requirement and made it free for all, meaning easy access to Microsoft Office documents on the vast majority of Android phones and tablets was unlocked. 3. Microsoft Office Mobile
It took a while, but the productivity behemoth that is Microsoft Office Mobile has now landed on Android. It's pretty impressive for a couple of reasons; you can create, edit and save MS Word, PowerPoint and Excel files on mobiles and tablets, plus, if it's for personal use (ahem) you can do it all for free -- although some sort of existing Microsoft email account is required to get it running. It's sort of free for business users too, although a login associated with a paid desktop version is required to be completely legitimate. 4. CamScanner - Phone PDF Creator
A more advanced version of the document scanner found within the Google Docs app, CamScanner lets users import various office docs into Android by converting photos into PDF format. Its most useful feature is a batch mode for paging through endless docs and taking photos of each page, which then get auto-cropped and saved in one exciting file. The free version is ad supported, plus there's a paid release if you want to do away with the banners. 5. OpenOffice Document Reader
Thomas Taschauer is a very clever individual who has created his own OpenOffice Android app, which is a decent attempt at bringing full support to Android. There are some problems with formatting and displaying images and, more critically, a lack of editing abilities. But for reading ODS and ODT files on your Android device it's a useful, and free, option. 6. SwiftKey X
SwiftKey is only an alternative Android keyboard, but it has one significantly useful feature for work use. The app's learning system means it analyses your typing as you type, memorising what you write. If you've just typed a sentence, starting afresh with the same word will magically recreate the whole text, one word after the other. There will be occasions where you lose a big chunk of copy - SwiftKey can often remember it for you. 7. ThinkFree Office Mobile Viewer to 1Drive with Document Viewer
ThinkFree is one of the bigger providers of Office compatible apps for Android. It's pre-loaded on many phones, with a free version up on the Android Market to try if it's not already installed on yours. The free version only offers doc reading, with full editing functions saved for the paid version. There's also a specific tablet release - ThinkFree Mobile for Tablet - which comes with a suitably bland desktop look. You don't want colours distracting you from work. 8. Documents To Go 3.0
DataViz's Documents to Go app is another popular choice for supporting Office on Android, with PowerPoint, Word, Excel and the usual file types on the compatibility list. The free version only offers reading access, with the $14.99 paid option adding editing options. It lets you import your Google Docs files, plus the Word app handles rich text, tables, footnotes and much more. 9. Cloud Print
Remove the abject misery of owning a printer from your life with this. Google's Cloud Print app lets you piggyback any printer that's linked to the tech giant's cloud services, beaming stuff straight from your phone or tablet to a printer. Once on your device it integrates with Android's sharing menu, so printing stuff is as simple as sharing a URL or photo. The dialog options are a little simpler than you find on PC or laptop, but for direct printing images and PDFs it does the job well. 10. Chrome Remote Desktop
If you've gone and left your important work stuff stuff on your desktop, or need full power PC action on the move, Google can save the day. Chrome Remote Desktop is simple to setup, requiring a companion app to be installed on your desktop. Once that's done and synced up, the Android app then lets you access all of your proper computer's features on your phone or tablet, obliterating the need for the vast majority of the above. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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