Although we don’t think much about it, a fitness tracker can expose you to hackers looking to get your data. They are great tools to help you stay fit and motivated, but if you’re not careful, they can do more harm than good.
Hackers are very good at what they do and always seek easy targets.
Fitness trackers are an easy target for them since so much data is being passed between devices. This means that you have to act like a big company using incident response (IR) to make sure your tracker is not breached. In this article, we will cover several ways to make sure your tracker and private information are safe.
1 – Keep firmware up to date
Fitness trackers run on what is called firmware. Over time, there are updates to this program that will help keep the data on it safe from hackers. Whenever the developers find a bug or a vulnerability in the code, they send an update to close it up. This means running frequent software updates should be the first line of defense.
The developers send out a patch to help shore up those vulnerabilities that a hacker can exploit. If you don’t update your device, it's like leaving your front door unlocked. Hackers are always looking for these easy ways, so the developers are playing a game of cat and mouse, trying to stay ahead of them.
2 – Customize the privacy settings
Your fitness tracker knows quite a bit of information about you. After all, its job is to know you better than you know yourself. That information is valuable to a hacker, so you must keep it as private as possible. You should customize your settings so that it isn’t easy to find this information.
You were customizing the settings to set everything to private. You can opt out of sharing your information on the fitness tracker platform or with others with the same tracker. If you like posting your metrics as part of a challenge, customize the settings so you remain anonymous.
If you choose to share information because of a challenge with others, only share with specific people and avoid posting your information to third-party Apps.
3 – Use 2-factor authorization
One easy way to ensure you are the only one to get into your app or tracker is to set up two-factor authorization or 2FA. This adds another layer of protection since it is difficult for a hacker to get instantaneous access to two of your devices.
If they manage to get a password for the website, it is unlikely they will also be able to get your smartphone. Set this up, and you will know immediately when somebody is trying to get into your account. Have different passwords for the website and your device for an added layer of protection.
