The smartphone security advice from the National Security Agency to turn it off and on again every week just won’t go away. Although the advice was initially penned in 2020 as part of a broader guide to mobile device best practices, the weekly reboot warning keeps returning to haunt us. But just how relevant is it in 2024, and should iPhone and Android smartphone users be doing what the NSA said? Let’s take a closer look.
The warning to smartphone users, first published in 2020, was actually just a small part of an infographic with the title of Mobile Device Best Practices. In all, the NSA managed to squeeze 16 pieces of advice to help smartphone users better protect their devices and the information contained upon or accessible from them, which was no mean feat. However, it also required the advice to be broad-ranging while at the same time brief in description. I mention this by way of background and not because I think the NSA has done anything wrong here. The opposite, in fact, is true: the NSA did a very good job indeed for the time and given the space restrictions. I also think the turn it off and on again advice has been blown out of all proportion in comparison to the rest of the NSA infographic which seems to be all but ignored. Not that all the advice stands up to closer inspection as we speed toward 2025.
I don’t think people need to disable Bluetooth when they are not using it, nor do I think that connecting to public Wi-Fi is inherently dangerous. The general consensus among cybersecurity professionals out here in the real, everyday, world would seem to agree. Maintaining physical control of your smartphone, using strong passwords and PINs, installing software updates as soon as possible and the use of system biometrics, yep, agree with all of that. As for not opening unknown email attachments and links or clicking on unexpected pop-ups, well, that advice is a given. Which pretty much leaves us where we started, with rebooting your smartphone every week.
Source: Forbes