Many of us use our smartphones for so many more tasks then merely speaking on the phone.  Smartphones have become the fast and convenient way for 300 million people to do their banking.  They also have become the fast and convenient way for scam artists and identity thieves to steal the money from your bank account by planting (with your assistance) malware on your smartphone that not only can read all of the information on your smartphone including your banking passwords and other personal information, but can even change the way your bank account balances appear to you on your smartphone so you are not aware that your account has been stolen by an identity thief.

TIPS

The primary way that identity thieves and scammers install the necessary malware to get access to your bank account and steal your money is by luring you into unwittingly downloading the malware that gives them control over and access to the information in your smartphone.  Most often they do this by a technique called phishing which I have described many times previously in Scamicide.  Phishing occurs when you are lured into clicking on a link or downloading an attachment that appears to be legitimate, but in fact is riddled with malware.  The malware is contained in the link or download material that is often contained in an email that appears to be from a company with which you do business or a trusted friend when in fact, the email is from an identity thief.  It is for this reason that I am constantly warning you not to click on links or download attachments unless you are absolutely sure that they are legitimate.  Just because it appears to come from a friend of yours does not make it legitimate.  His or her email could have been hacked making it appear that the communication and the link are legitimate when they are not.  This technique is called spear phishing.  That is why I always tell you to confirm that the email is legitimate regardless of how good it looks before you download anything or click on a link.

In addition, you should make sure that your smartphone as well as all of your electronic devices are protected with the latest anti-virus and anti-malware software and that you keep these security programs constantly updated with the latest security patches and updates.  In addition, you may even want to consider having a separate smartphone for online banking and other financial transactions on which smartphone you do not do any text messaging or emails in order to avoid falling prey to phishing.