Australian PM says nightly phone ritual can save you from a lot of headaches
Many of us never put our smartphones down and make sure to charge them before the battery dies. Keeping your phone on at all times isn't a good idea though and you should turn it off every day for five minutes, according to Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, as reported by Guardian.
In line with the US National Security Agency's guidelines, Albanese says that turning your phone off can protect it from cybercriminals. The NSA advises to switch off your phones once every week but the Australian PM goes a step further and says you should turn it off every night for five minutes.
Considering it looks like we spend every waking hour on our smartphones and don't want to miss a single notification, even five minutes may sound like a lot but you can shut it off while doing other things such as brushing your teeth.
Australia recently appointed Air Marshal Darren Goldie as its first National Cyber Security Coordinator who described the cyber security situation in the country as "dire." Albanese believes everyone has a part to play when it comes to online safety, hence the advice to not keep your phone on all the time.
Cybersecurity experts believe that forcible closing apps could stop hackers from monitoring your usage pattern and stealing data.
Since it's very hard for hackers to access the core operating system, they often go for in-memory payloads, meaning malicious code is loaded into the memory. These attacks can't survive a phone reboot.
In the case of sophisticated, persistent malware, turning a phone off can frustrate criminals and make it harder for them to maintain access to your phone.
If you think turning your phone off once every 24 hours is too much work, you can instead turn on the airplane mode or remember to close apps that are running in the background regularly.
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