Ask HN: How to Harden Your Phone?
No synthesized answer yet. Check the discussion below.
Since a great deal of mobile usage is at home, how about a firewall of the home network as an 80/20 kind of solution? (YMMV) You might include a VPN.
This does not help away from home.
I have asked friends to use Signal for its many features, but I'm in low-tech company lately. They need a kick. Signal might address your messaging needs, and TBH, is better than imessage or FaceTime in mixed company. "Green people". Mainly because it is entirely crosds-platform.
I believe Signal is compromised! There are many such articles online https://www.truesec.com/hub/blog/russian-intelligence-compro...
But the 80/20 rule as written about is quite different. Simplified, it states that some 20% of effort or cases can give 80% of the results, whereas the other 20% can take 80% of your time/effort to nail.
Please query Signal about any security concerns. There was a clone of it being used by government officials that had flaws.
Get a pixel
Install grapheneOS
You believe GrapheneOS is more secure than Android?
GrapheneOS is very private.
Computers at home, behind a router, running something like Cubes to further partition activities are far more secure than something persistently exposed to all the side channel attacks present on a phone.
That's all they need to send you a zero-day, zero-click exploit
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-mo...
For a deeper guide, check out the CISecurity benchmarks for your smartphone. They go a bit deeper. But the CISA guide will get you most of the way there.
2. Watch what kind of app permissions you grant to what apps. This is way easier to do on iPhones vs Android phones.
3. Understand that Google Apps (gApps) on Android phones are essentially a rootkit anymore. Especially with that recent news that Google is going to try to end sideloading APKs. Apple isn't that much better but they're more "out of the way" when you try to work.
4. Apple's SDK for its devices is more private than Android in certain ways. The IceBlock app's explainer is really good about this: https://www.iceblock.app/android
Basically, squeeze both tubes, part A and part B, into a bowl, mix well.
lay your phone on a flat surface and pour the mixed araldite over the phone.
smooth and level the araldite with a plastic tool.
let dry.
sorted!
Not afraid of getting “hacked” tbh. I visit normal websites, and have less than 10 standard apps.