One simple step can thwart top phone hackers, experts say Share Updated: 10:10 PM EDT Jul 28, 2021 ALAN SUDERMAN, Associated Press Share Updated: 10:10 PM EDT Jul 28, 2021 Hide Transcript Show Transcript And what we try to do is understand the threats to these devices and systems and then produce guidance that actually mitigates those threats. And that's where the reboot your phone regularly, guidance comes from. We know that malicious cyber actors will attempt to attack mobile devices like phones and tablets, but we also know that the manufacturers of those systems do quite a good job of protecting the integrity of the stored software and the operating system and so forth on those devices. The other thing is many attacks are not singleton's right. You have some exploit the games, you a foothold in the memory of an application, then you have to break out of that application and you have to escalate privilege. A lot of modern cyber attacks are a chain of 23 or even more vulnerabilities and row that have to be successfully exploited. And if you can reset the adversary back to the beginning of that chain and force them to go through the whole thing again, that's also an aspect of incurring costs on them. The reboot, for example, there's no burden to it. All. Modern phones have a way to do that in an automated fashion. Similarly, a lot of folks are not going anywhere that's so sensitive. They need to worry about the bit on this guide that says location. Your your phone knows where it is on the Earth and it will under many circumstances share that information with external parties. Just be careful which apps you install, install the ones you need. When you're done with one, you're not going to use it anymore. Uninstall it because by doing that, you keep your attack surface more bounded.