All my finances are available using my phone.
I can pay, transfer, buy etc. etc. with either of two credit cards, neither of which have a particularly high limit intentionally, but still more than I would like to lose.
Obviously I have Google Pay and other similar, but NFC is not on by default (most of the countries I'm in don't use it much).
I don't do anything these days which would make me any kind of targeted risk.
Obviously phone could be lost or stolen, and about the phone itself I care not a jot.
My 2 SIM cards are protected by 2 different 4 digit PINs.
The phone is protected by a 6 digit PIN.
Every APP of any import has dual authorisation - typically my fingerprint and a 6 digit PIN, sometimes a complex password instead of the PIN.
Once in an app any transaction will require additional authorisation, always my fingerprint, sometimes a password or a code sent to me, sometimes the use of an authorisation app. Which will also be protected.
I mostly feel pretty safe and secure. Today though I had a glitch which turned out to be nothing but gave me a jolt.
My phone is the authorisation centre of my life, there's seven tenths of f.all on my computer.
Am I being unwise or is this just the world we face now?
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Sounds to me like, too many eggs in one basket.
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You're lucky if you can get fingerprints to work. My old iPhone and my current Samsung S9 won't play at all so I'm on 4 and 5-digit PINs and numbers that the bank sends me. I think it's my manual work that throws the fingerprint sensors off.
Annoyingly for him, my son published a youtube vid on 2-factor authentication, none of which I can implement. If he knew his mum had passwords on post-it notes on her desk, he would probably disown us.
Yes, we're vulnerable, especially if I croak first. That's probably a subject for another thread...
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I'm not dissimilar, though still being a heavy PC user I tend to gravitate to it to do most stuff as I find a large screen and sensible keyboard easier. Your phone is more secure than mine, though mine isn't so bad.
However I can think of a couple of issues I've seen or experienced though, with phone dependency, as it happens both travel related.
On return from Portugal earlier this month a bloke was not allowed on the flight as he could not show his necessary vaccination status as he'd lost his phone.
And when I was on my solo European road trip I had everything on my phone, including all the addresses of my overnights. I was also navigating using the phone. I dropped the phone on a loo stop and the screen cracked right across, and the phone rebooted. Late at night in a foreign country and no idea what town I was heading for, let alone the address and how to get in, and no physical map anyway. ISTR the SIM stopped working too. I don't recall exactly how it went from there but it involved stopping for WiFi regularly as there was a small corner of the screen I could use if I lined everything up and kept rotating.
I now carry two phones (one as backup, without SIM) on major journeys, and make sure I have downloaded stuff to both phones rather than depending on connectivity. When travelling with SWMBO she insists on everything being printed (boarding passes, tickets, anything).
On the three Android phones I've had with fingerprint security, they've all worked fine. Some apps which use face recognition are quite hard to use though.
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>>Everything is on the phone....
Make sure it is backed up regularly.
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For me, the phone is never a primary place for data. Apart from data which belongs on the phone, everything is on my PC and/or my NAS, and the bits I need on the phone are consciously put there, in a place where I can find them, and often in "the cloud" too for stuff I may need when travelling.
Many people back up regularly but don't know where it goes to, how to restore it, or whether it contains what they think it does (and of course isn't corrupt). Many of those depend on automatic syncs (e.g. for photos) but really have no idea if they are working reliably.
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There are always three up-to-date copies of everything on my phone.
I just changed my phone. It's not stressful, difficult or time consuming.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sun 21 Nov 21 at 14:21
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I only use my phone for calls, texts and exchanging dirty jokes and videos on Whatsapp.
Banking is on the PC and payments are made by card (Or cash)
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All my day to day financial stuff is on my phone. Protected by fingerprint and PIN. I can also access my accounts via their web interfaces and those credentials are saved encrypted on Bitwarden's server along with all the other website logins I use. The contents of my Bitwarden "vault" are exported whenever something changes and then PGP encrypted on my laptop and a RasPi accessible externally via VPN.
So, if I lose/break my phone I have to lose access to Bitwarden, my laptop or tablet AND the Pi before things get serious.
Of course I'm not going to break my phone. I'll be landing at JoBurg and get mugged walking to the taxi. Phone, laptop, wallet, cards and passport all gone in one fell swoop.
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Our family WhatsApp chats were just talking about this the other day but on a basic level.
Other than my dads mobile phone number, I do not know a single other number. They are all stored on my phone. I call a person, I don’t dial a number.
If I lost my phone I would need to phone my 90 year old dad for assistance!!
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Actually as I sent that I realised I have a backup of all the contacts on iCloud and also on my gmail.
Still don’t physically know any other numbers though.
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>> I do not know a single other number.
I find it sad.
I used to pride myself on knowing so many numbers. Now I think I know two.
I used to pride myself on being able to find my way around the major cities of the world. Now there is Google Maps.
I used to pride myself on my general knowledge, now there is Google.
It is sad that knowledge has less and less value in these days where you can know anything in seconds. Sadly it mostly hasn't been replaced with a need for understanding.
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>> >> I do not know a single other number.
Most people seem able to recall their own mobile numbers though it's not that uncommon in my work to find one who does not.
Mrs B and I were very firm in making sure our children knew the home landline number from an early age. Helped occasionally when they were small.
Much more recently, probably early last year, daughter's phone died on her when she was supposed to be meeting her brother and his partner's family at the Another Place installation in Crosby. Between them they cocked up over which car park they were using.
Remembering the home number dinned into her a quarter century earlier she was able to borrow a phone in a cafe and brief me so I could act as mission control and get them on the same spot.
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"Backed up" means to a PC, I take it?
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BBC report today about a chap who says he lost his phone/wallet after his drinks were spiked in a club:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59494524
Initial loss c£18k. Banks have refunded but at least two only did so after BBC got involved.
At my age I'm not likely to be clubbing 'til late but have lost phones and wallets in the past - though not together.
Will leave apps/internet banking on the PC for now.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 4 Dec 21 at 15:34
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I read that story. If ever anything was shouting "there's more to this than you know" it was that story.
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>> I read that story. If ever anything was shouting "there's more to this than you
>> know" it was that story.
I heard the report on Money Box this afternoon. As well as moving money between accounts and creating transfers and overdrafts on multiple accounts the crims were reported to have made cash point withdrawals.
Can just about see how, if the user was slack about verification, apps could be used to create payees and move money but cash point withdrawals?
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>> Can just about see how, if the user was slack about verification, apps could be
>> used to create payees and move money but cash point withdrawals?
some banks allow you get a code via your app, type it into a cashpoint, and withdraw cash.
Some machines now accept phone apps/NFC use of cashpoint.
As everyone says, this case is not quite as cut and dried as it seems, there is almost certainly some severe victim carelessness along the way. Both in company he keeps, drinking too much and phone security. Given the level and sophistication of misuse I would suspect collusion.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 4 Dec 21 at 19:23
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If I had to bet, I'd say he was familar to the people who took his money.
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Not quite the same but phone and banking related….
On our staff intranet we had an article recently about phone:
Work issue some of us with smart phones so that we can communicate “on the road”. Mainly emails and some private bank apps to access our systems whilst with clients.
Work have control over the phones for updates, locking etc.
One colleague’s phone (in the wider bank) wasn’t getting updated so they called him in to check it and it turns out it wasn’t the phone he was issued with but a clone.
Work are pretty good with lost or damaged phones so it wasn’t him changing it himself.
There were some tracking apps on the unauthorised phone and it appears that he was targeted and his phone was swapped out by someone trying to get his passwords.
We have also had articles about some staff sacked for smuggling key loggers in to call centres and they claim that they have been approached and given money to do so. One person was caught on CCTV going around adding devices between the PCs USB socket and the keyboard. The video was shown on the intranet.
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Finances and phones - maltrap
