Your smartphone is more than just a phone – it’s a small, personal computer. And that makes it an attractive target for criminals and identity thieves. In today’s Daily Shield article, Intersections’ Consumer Security Adviser, Neal O’Farrell gives us the scoop on smartphone safety for the holidays. Our advice: Hang on to your smartphone this holiday season!

A smartphone is not really a phone, and that’s a fact you should keep in mind over the coming holidays. A smartphone really is an ultra-powerful, ultra compact computer with a phone thrown in for convenience. And it’s that computing power that has millions of users running their lives around that tiny, pocket-sized device. And why thieves around the world want those devices too. Maybe yours.

With power comes storage, for lots of personal and work information, and so to lose a smartphone could be the first step towards losing your identity. Which might explain why we’re seeing such a spike in the theft of smartphones, in public places and crowds and in broad daylight.

According to a recent study by the New York Police Department, of the 16,000 or so robberies reported in New York in the first ten months of this year, half involved mobile devices and most of those were phones. The iPhone is one of the most popular, accounting for more than 70% of phones stolen on buses and subways, and often snatched out of the hands of the user. And computers, MP3 players, and tablets were taken in nearly half the reported burglaries in the city.

There are a number of explanations for this trend. Personal tech gadgets have a good resale value and will fetch more money when fenced. And many thieves will steal a smartphone or iPad simply because they want one.

The smartphone and the iPad are the new wallets and purses, yet imagine if you sat on a busy subway with your wallet held close to your ear for everyone to see, while at the same time your mind is already home and sitting down to dinner? That’s just too much of a temptation for opportunist thieves.

But more thieves are turning to gadget theft as a way to steal the owner’s identity. Your phone alone could be a treasure-trove of information that thieves can use to piece together your identity, including:

• Personal and family information, including names and addresses, contained in email and texts.

• Personal, family, and work phone numbers

• Work information including computer logins and passwords.

• Financial information and financial apps.

• Location information that can tell the thief where you go and where you hang out.

• Downloaded books and music that clues the thief into your musical tastes.

• Photos of you, your friends and family that can help the thief identify you or impersonate you.

And while there are moves towards a national standard that will instantly disable a phone or device so it can’t be used with any carrier, thus turning into little more than a sleek brick, thieves are easily able to replace a SIM card in a phone and being using it immediately.

In a recent blog on CIO magazine, security writer Tom Kaneshige spoke about how as he sat on a train in San Francisco he got the eerie feeling that two passengers, aged only around 10 or 11, were paying just a little too much attention to him and his phone as they worked their way down the carriage in his direction. He trusted his instincts and put the phone in his pocket, and turns out he made the right decision. Minutes later the two kids snatched a phone from the ear of a passenger and dashed away into the rush-hour crowd.

As he said in his blog “Smartphone owners bury their noses into phone screens and plug their ears with earbuds, making themselves easy targets. Lost in our own virtual smartphone worlds, we’re just not aware of our surroundings anymore. Can you ask for a better victim profile?”

He added “As the holiday shopping rush ramps up, smartphone owners will be whipping out their phones more than ever. Smartphones in crowded places are becoming a common sight, as holiday shoppers tap the power of apps to keep track of Christmas gifts, get directions, compare prices, check into bars and restaurants.”

If you don’t want to gift your favorite phone to a complete stranger over the holidays, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Less is more. If you don’t really need to use your device in a public place, or you’re just bored, put it in your pocket and find some other way to distract yourself.

• Eyes up. If you’re using a phone or tablet on a train, a bus, subway, or park bench, keep an eye on the people around you so you’re not surprised by a quick grab-and-dash.

• Be especially vigilant if you’re on your phone on a busy street. It’s no uncommon for thieves to run past a target, snatch the phone from their ear and disappear back into the same crowd.

• Keep as little personal information as possible on your phone. Here’s a revolutionary idea – use the phone as a phone, and not a portable data locker. If your phone is stolen, your life doesn’t go along with it.

• Consider using one of the growing number of free apps, like Lookout, that will backup and restore your phone’s contents, disable your phone, and even help locate it if it’s stolen.

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Neil O’Farrell, Intersections Consumer Security Advisor is back today with a timely article about smart phones.

Phones are no longer what they used to be, or even intended to be. If you’re one of the many millions of Americans who owns a smart phone, what you really own is a very powerful pocket computer that happens to include a phone.

It’s that incredible pocket power that may quickly change the world as we know it. And what we know is that banking from your smart phone is already with us. Not only can you download apps that will allow you to log in to your bank account, check balances, and make payments, you can now deposit a check using your smart phone. That’s because most smart phones come with high quality cameras that can easily scan check images into your phone and then sent to your bank.

But it doesn’t stop there. Your smart phone is now being used, or at least considered as a replacement for things like:

• Your credit and debit cards. With the growth in use of RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) technology, your smart phone could soon become a payment system that will allow you to simply hold your phone near a cash register to make a payment. Or plug it into a home computer to make a secure, hands-free online payment that can’t be easily compromised by keyloggers or banking Trojans.

• Your driver’s license. A smart phone could not only be used to store your driver’s license, it could also hold your entire driving history, tickets, and even registration and insurance. If you’re stopped by law enforcement, no documents required. Just hand them your phone.

And no need to worry about renewing your insurance or waiting at the DMV for a new license. Your phone and all its documents are updated automatically.

• A universal traveling identity. There’s already growing discussion about the use of smart phones as a way to provide consumers with a single identity that would allow them to access any site on the internet but only have to log in once. And of course the phone offers lots of cool functionality to make it much harder to spoof your identity – to authenticate you by your voice or using the in-built camera or screen to scan and verify your face, retina, or fingerprint.

• Your passport. If a smart phone can be used as a universal id that includes the capability to verify your identity using biometrics like retina or fingerprint analysis, there’s no reason why your smart phone couldn’t replace your passport or green card.

As usual, the greatest obstacle to the full exploitation of this life changing opportunity is the security risk. And the most obvious risk is losing your phone, to carelessness or to a thief. If your phone becomes a central part of your everyday life, that life could come to a grinding halt if you lose it or forget it.

And if a thief manages to get his or her hands on your phone, and hours pass before you realize the phone is gone, that may be more than enough time for that thief to hijack your life.

The threat of malicious software targeted at smart phones is also on the rise, and criminals are now intensifying their focus on smart phones as their next big business opportunity. Intriguing this turn of events, when you think it was only a couple of years ago that the media was very skeptical that malware would every even work on smart phones.

Truth be told, a thief doesn’t have to steal or infect your phone in order to compromise it. The early RFID technologies that make it easy to “read” information from a phone simply by holding or swiping the phone close to the reader were quickly compromised as hackers were able to find easy ways to intercept the radio communications used by this technology.

Then there’s the issue of liability. As a consumer your liability for any fraudulent losses are usually limited, often to zero. But if you start banking and shopping from your smart phone, will financial institutions and retailers still hold you harmless, or pass the blame and cost to your phone provider?

Luckily the security industry has already responded, and for as little as $20 a year you can purchase smart phone security that in the event of a lost or stolen phone will lock that phone, wipe all the data, and restore a copy of everything that was one that phone to a new phone. And of course almost every anti-virus company now has some kind of security solution for iPhones, Android-powered phones, and most other smart phones.

Over time, most of these security issues will be addressed, even if not perfectly. The smart phone seems to be on a rapid path to becoming a life concierge in your pocket. It’s already been widely adopted in Japan and many countries are now looking to Japan for guidance on widespread consumer adoption.

“The U.S. can look to Japan as a model for successful mobile innovation,” said Beth Robertson, Director of Payments Research at Javelin Strategy & Research. “In Japan, mobile wallets play a broad role in consumers’ lives. An individual’s mobile phone might contain their airline boarding pass, help track their loyalty programs, unlock their home, pay for a taxi or soda out of a vending machine and be used to purchase items at a store. This wide array of functionality makes the mobile wallet an indispensable and integral piece of daily consumer life.”

Want to learn more about identity theft and fraud protection?

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