A large number of real estate agents are vulnerable to numerous privacy breaching threats that prowl the internet. Most real estate agents underestimate their cyber risks because they think they can never be hacked, and as a result, utilize little or no security tools.
As a real estate agent, you come across a lot of sensitive information about clients every day. This scales your device up a hacker’s priority list. With your Android device, a hacker could get access to information of various clients such as driver licenses, social security numbers, and credit or debit card numbers.
In this age, real estate agents rely on smartphones and applications to maintain communication with clients, create schedules, store financial documents, and so on. Because of this, agents can also have their phones stolen. If you’re lacking security tools, various privacy breaches could be performed on your smartphone.
Android Security Tools for Real Estate Agents
- Password Management Software
When you create a password for a new online account, you need a very strong password that can’t be guessed by hackers. Some real estate agents attempt to use passwords such as names of relatives or pets. What’s more, they use this same password across all online accounts, ensuring it becomes practically simple for a hacker to access.
There are password management tools that can take care of all your worries concerning the password security of your accounts. These tools can perform various functions such as creating strong passwords for you, auto-filling your password on different devices, storing all your passwords in one account, and so on.
Top-rated password management software includes LastPass, Dashlane, and 1Password.
- Android VPNs
A VPN is a security tool that encrypts online traffic flowing in and out of your device. A Virtual Private Network app for Android secures your device by routing all online traffic flowing in and out of your android device through a tunnel. VPNs act as protective barriers between you and cybercriminals.
If you’re in public areas, just like everybody else, you’d most likely connect to public Wi-Fi. There are public Wi-Fi networks that have been hacked by cybercriminals attempting to spy on your information. This type of hack could be facilitated through a man-in-the-middle attack or public Wi-Fi masking.
Once you’re connected to the Wi-Fi network, all online information flowing through your device would be viewed by the hacker. Imagine you’re conducting a financial transaction or going through your email at that time. Yes, that thought seems quite scary, doesn’t it?
Once you’re using a VPN app, any hijacker striving to get your information would toil in vain. Every bit of online traffic to and from your device would be encoded, making it indecipherable to the cybercriminal.
- Android Screen Pinning
Screen pinning is a handy feature on Android smartphones that allow the user access to only one specific app screen. For instance, you can pin the Telegram app on your phone, making other features inaccessible to any other user. This way, if you leave your phone with someone, he/she wouldn’t be able to access other applications on your phone.
To activate this mode, you can head over to ‘Security’ under ‘Settings’. Click on ‘Other security settings’ and then click ‘Pin windows’.
You’ll receive instructions about pinning apps on the activation page.
- Permission Managers
Permission managers remove permissions from an app of your choosing. Several Android applications require permissions they don’t need. Some of these applications might contain malware.
Usually, when you decline permissions to an application, it won’t get installed on your Android device. However, with permission managers, you get to regulate the type of information the application can access while enjoying the software.
The best app permission managers for your Android include Mobo Clean and App Ops.
Conclusion
Due to the amount of sensitive information real estate agents hold on smartphones, they could become prime targets for malware, spyware, and viruses. This could result in the loss of client trust and disrepute to the company the agent represents.
To prevent this, real estate agents can use features like Screen Pinning, utilize VPNs, permission managers, and password management software.
This article is informative.