It’s a harmless gesture that can help protect the personal data of smartphone users. They are invited to turn off their device at least once a day to limit the risk of cyber attacks against them. The recommendation comes directly from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, in remarks reported June 23 by the guardian.
“We all have a responsibility. Simple things, like turning off the phone every night for five minutes. For those who are watching, do it every 24 hours…”, stressed the Prime Minister, who then announced the appointment of a national coordinator for Cybersecurity in Australia.
The advice is approved and transmitted by cybersecurity experts. This is the case of Matthieu Audibert, a gendarmerie officer and doctoral student in private law and criminal sciences who, in a post on Twitter, specifies that this process makes it possible in particular to “close all applications and all processes that are running as a fundamental task”.
A reboot twice a week
However, it is usually through these processes that hackers gain access to an Android or iOS smartphone. Restarting a smartphone can even be used to neutralize certain particularly malicious attacks, underlines the specialized journalist Jean-Marc Manach.
The National Security Agency (NSA) is no exception on the subject. In its best practices guide for mobile devices, the US government agency recommends restarting your smartphone at least twice a week to prevent two types of attacks.
First of all, those of the phishing type, whose objective is sometimes to install malicious software. Then, “vulnerabilities that do not require user interaction to activate (“zero-click exploits”).”
However, restarting a smartphone is not a panacea in terms of cybersecurity since many threats cannot be killed with this solution, reminds the NSA. For example, those based on malicious applications or Wi-Fi networks.
Closing applications: a useless gesture
If turning a smartphone off and on allows you to close all applications, you should know that, contrary to popular belief, this initiative does not necessarily affect the autonomy of the mobile.
Craig Federighi, head of iOS at Apple, already explained this in an email that the 9to5mac site had obtained in 2016. He assured, in response to a customer question, that applications that are not used in the foreground are automatically closed by the operating system that it is programmed to manage itself. The latter can thus determine which are the least used applications to put them on standby in the background.
Same for Android, Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s head of operating system, explained in a tweet. Once put in the background by the smartphone, the applications require little battery and processor thanks to the algorithms and optimization of the software. Closing them manually ultimately consumes more power, since the mobile must reboot them completely when called again, Hiroshi Lockheimer noted.
Specifically, applications capable of accessing certain components -such as the camera or GPS- are the only ones that can remain active in the background. A feature that allows you to take advantage of GPS guidance or make a FaceTime call, while doing another task at the same time.
Source: BFM TV
