How to Protect Your Phone from Theft or Loss?

Any one of us is susceptible to such a situation, where we lose our phone or it gets stolen and ends up with someone we do not know. You might forget your phone in a taxi or it might slip out of your pocket without you noticing. In most cases, you will not be able to recover your phone, unless you are lucky enough to have it found by an honest person.

 

The issue is not always in losing the phone itself – although it may be an expensive phone – but the real problem is that we keep our entire digital life on its memory: our family and personal photos, our electronic and banking accounts, and perhaps some necessary documents for our jobs, and many other valuable things that we always keep on the phone. So, in this article, we will present to you more than one way to properly protect your phone in case of loss or theft, so let’s go.

 

1- Find My Device

The first app from Google is Find My Device, which actually does the job perfectly and is one of the best options for Android systems. The app allows you to lock your phone remotely, sign out of your device, erase its contents, and view your phone’s location on the map and contact it through the app. If you lock the phone remotely, you can write a permanent message on the lock screen until you disable it yourself.

Now, let’s move on to how to secure your phone through the Find My Device feature. In most cases, Find My Device feature is automatically enabled by default, but it is necessary to check if it is enabled or disabled on your phone. Go to the settings app, then look for Google settings, then security, then click on “Find My Device” feature and make sure it is enabled as shown in the previous image.

Now, if you lose your phone anywhere or your phone gets stolen, your next step is to go to the Find My Device Web interface and then click on “Secure Device” and type in the first box the phrase you want to leave for whoever finds your phone – let it be “call me if you find this phone” – then leave him your phone number that he can call you on and click on Secure Device.

Immediately, your phone will be secured and a message will be displayed on the lock screen instructing the phone holder to call you on the number you left on the lock screen.

You might be interested: How to activate and use the Find My Mobile service on Samsung phones

 

If it becomes clear to you that the person who found the phone is not responding, your next step should be to delete the contents of the phone. It’s not a big problem because you can later retrieve everything from your cloud services, but your cloud services must be activated and you must be already interested in storing all your necessary data on them so that you can retrieve them again.

In this step, click on the third option: Erase Device, and in this step, all the contents of your phone will be erased. If your phone is not online, then the data will be deleted as soon as its activity returns and connects to the internet, and in this way, the phone will return to the factory state it was in initially.

2- Cerberus

The Cerberus app is a great alternative, in fact, it is even better than the default Google service. It is the best external app for combating theft of smartphones based on the Android system. It works through three main ways: remotely controlling the phone through the web, remotely controlling the phone through SMS messages, or through automatic alerts.

This app allows you to know the phone’s current location and track its movements, lock the phone, give continuous alerts on the phone, upload call logs, erase everything on the internal and external phone memory (SD Card). You can completely shut down the phone if someone tries to change the SIM card.

At the same time, since the app fights theft, it captures a picture of who is holding your phone in your absence and records secret videos then stores them in the cloud so you can know who is using your phone in your absence.

The app is completely secure and does not contain any harmful software or any spying methods that could compromise your privacy, but because it conflicts with Google’s policies, it is not available in the Google Play store. You can download it from the official website. After installing the app, it will ask you for the necessary permissions associated with its functions. It asks for access to call logs, phone app, text messages, files, photos, media, and camera as well. After you grant all the necessary permissions as in the previous image, click on Finish.

If this is your first time using Cerberus, you can start by creating an account, create your account and agree to the terms and conditions.

Now, the app will show you how to proceed if your phone is lost or stolen. Where you can log in to the Cerberus.Com site with your account that you created a while ago on the phone, and start controlling your phone remotely – if your phone is connected to the internet. Alternatively, you can use another phone to send commands via text messages. To control some additional features, you must grant the app device management permission. After that, go to the main menu and app settings and start customizing them according to your personal preference.

If you encounter any difficulty in uninstalling the app, search for it in the device administrator apps, then deactivate it first and now you can remove it from the apps list.

3- McAfee

McAfee is one of the best and most popular antivirus programs on various operating systems: Windows, Mac, Android. The equivalent app on Android has a theft protection feature as well. The app’s features include the ability to lock the phone and capture thieves’ photos, protect uninstallation, and more. If the thief tries to enter the wrong PIN three times, the phone will capture a picture of the thief and lock itself completely until the owner unlocks it again. Additionally, you can benefit from the “find my phone” feature to see its location on the map. The app is free but paid upgrade is necessary and costs $30 annually.

All you need to secure your phone through McAfee is to create an account and choose a PIN, then retype it, and this way your phone is secured. From here, you can log in to the McAfee site with your account and remotely control your phone.