Satish Shetty of Codeproof Technologies writes:

Don’t underestimate the security of your smartphone. Here are 4 important but easy security tips to secure your iPhone, iPad, Android phone and Tablet devices.

1. Protecting Your Phone From Unauthorized Access

The most important thing is to make sure you have a passcode lock on your phone, and to not share this passcode with anyone else. According to data from Codeproof, more than 50% of smartphones don’t have a passcode lock. For better protection, the passcode must be at least 6 letters and numbers in length. A longer passcode makes it even harder for a stranger to hack into your phone.

In the iPhone, open “Settings” app and select “General” and then scroll down and select “Passcode Lock”. Tap “Turn Passcode on” and enter your password. Also turn off “Simple Passcode”. This way you can have passcode with both number and letters. Also “Require Passcode” set to “Immediately” so that the device gets locked immediately when it is idle.

Make sure you turn on “Erase Data” at the bottom of the screen so that if an intruder tries to hack your passcode to get into the device, the phone automatically erases all the contents and goes to factory default mode.

If you want to configure passcode settings on multiple devices at once, you can use a Mobile Device Management (MDM) software such as Codeproof to do that remotely.

2. Locating Your Missing Phone

Almost all available smartphones have a GPS location tracking feature built-in. However you must enable it and make sure you can remotely track it before the device is lost or stolen.

In an iPhone or iPad, you can use the Find My iPhone App to locate your missing iPhone or iPad. Alternatively you can use the Codeproof app to locate your iPhone, iPad, Android Phone and Tablet devices.

3. Do not Jailbreak Your Phone

Jailbreaking lets you to install apps from third-party appstores - but you have to pay price for your freedom. Because mobile operating systems are designed with built-in security, jailbreaking a mobile device compromises the OS security model and opens data to exploitation. Jailbroken phones are therefore also more vulnerable to external attacks. You can use Codeproof App to check if your phone is jailbroken or not.

4. Ability to Delete Emails and Photos from Phone When Lost or Stolen

In case your phone is lost or stolen, you may try to locate it first. if you can’t locate it, you should send a DATA WIPE command to wipe all the contents in the phone. This way an intruder won’t be able to access your personal and corporate emails or photos.

Pretty much all the smartphones have an ability to delete all the contents in the device with a command. In iPhone, using Find My iPhone app you can do this but make sure you setup that app before you lose your phone. Alternatively using the Codeproof web console, you can remotely issue a DATA WIPE command to clear all contents in the lost or stolen device.

Satish Shetty is the founder & CEO of Codeproof Technologies, a mobile security startup based in the American city of Redmond, WA. Described as a technology visionary, he has more than 18 years of experience in developing software at companies like Microsoft and McAfee.