Beware! Your old phone may reveal your privacy

The speed of electronic product iteration is getting faster and faster, and consumers are changing their phones more and more frequently. With the increase in personal privacy and security awareness, many people will "clean up" their phones when dealing with old phones. After deleting files, photos and various apps, they can be idle or resold. However, is the content in the phone really gone after clicking delete? How to delete it completely? Today, the editor will show you the secret!

Little secrets of mobile phone data storage

1. Normal deletion or factory reset cannot completely erase data. When the system deletes files, it only marks them as "deleted", that is, the system defaults to the data being deleted, but the stored data itself still exists, but is in an overwriteable state.

2. If no new data operations are performed, the top layer of information can be easily recovered. The data on the hard disk can be overwritten repeatedly, and data recovery can generally only read the information overwritten on the top layer. For example, photos and contacts that have just been deleted may be recovered.

What private information may be leaked by old mobile phones?

1. User name, ID number, mobile phone number <br /> This is the information that criminals are most concerned about. Once the data is successfully recovered, the consequences will be disastrous.

2. Photos and Videos

You may have deleted the photos and videos in your old phone, but criminals may use technical means to restore the deleted content and information. They may not only steal the owner's personal information, but also forge fraudulent information and blackmail you.

3. SMS and contact information

Some people are accustomed to storing important text messages and contacts on their mobile phones. These messages and address books may also be recovered by criminals, who can then obtain the social relationships of the owner and use this information to commit fraud.

4. Third-party payment information

If an old mobile phone falls into the hands of criminals, they may use the identity information contained in the phone to reset bank cards or payment passwords, thereby stealing the owner's money.

5. Social media account information

After recovering the owner's data, criminals can use this information to log into the owner's social account, view the owner's private information, and may use this information to carry out illegal activities.

6. Email information

Some friends will send and receive some important work content through emails. These emails may involve business secrets, etc. If they are restored by criminals, they may cause the leakage of business secrets.

Faced with the risk of information leakage from old mobile phones, what should we do to completely delete the private content on the phone?

Android phone

The first step is to delete the photos, videos, document files, etc. in the old phone, and log out of various software accounts logged in to the phone.

The second step is to restore the factory settings and completely clear the data in the phone.

The third step is that because the original data may still be recovered through data recovery software after the phone is restored to factory settings, it is necessary to fill the data by downloading a large number of useless files into the phone to fill up the phone’s memory space.

Step 4: Delete the useless files and data that fill up the phone's memory space, and then restore the phone to factory settings. Repeat this process two or three times.

IOS phone

After backing up the data, open [Settings] - [General] - [Restore] - [Erase All Content and Settings]. If a password is set, the system will prompt you to enter the password. After entering the password, the system will ask the user to confirm again, and the user can click [Erase].

In addition, you can also take your phone to a repair shop and use software tools to shred the data, or use third-party flashing software to flash the phone multiple times to deeply destroy the data in the old phone.

Have you learned today’s tips for using your mobile phone?