Changing Your Smartphone?

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So the time has come. You have decided to get that new smartphone. You are going take the plunge!
But what do you do with old one? Be careful, all may not be what it seems.
Smartphones are very personal devices. They involve the use of our totally private data. Data like credit card details, purchase records, contact details of friends and family, videos, photos, schedules, files and their associated metadata, web browser history, Wi-Fi connection history, logins and passwords for email and other cloud-based services, text messages, chats logs, and a great deal of other information. Face it, a lot of stuff….. I mean data.
All this data could potentially provide a tasty menu of appetizers enabling a cybercriminal to order up a number of social engineering attacks against the handset’s owner. So it makes sense that taking preventive measures will enable us to feel more at ease and be better protected against such risks, especially if you are turning it in or selling it.
So how do you go about deleting your smartphone data securely?
Protect Yourself
Let’s start with some basic groundwork.
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... Just because you delete a file, is the data really deleted?
Unfortunately, no. With most equipment, deleting a file tells the system that the next time it needs to write data, it can overwrite the space used by the file.
The issue with that however, is that until the new write operation takes place, the information remains physically stored in the form of bits on the corresponding storage drive and can be recovered. This kind of deletion is known as a logical deletion and is the procedure that almost all operating systems use.
There is another kind of deletion called physical deletion which modifies the data bit by bit, by creating junk content on the storage medium. This procedure ensures that the data cannot be recovered, but it takes much longer and therefore usually is considered undesirable for tasks where the user experience is considered.
How about if you restore to factory settings?
That depends on the platform. Research in early 2015 showed that on Apple and BlackBerry devices, when you perform a factory reset, the deletion of data is physical, thus preventing the information from being recovered later. However, not all Android devices were as lucky and it was possible to recover a lot of the data that had been stored on them. So what should Android users do? The simplest option is to encrypt the device before restoring the factory settings. That way, although someone could make a physical copy of the device, the bits of data stored on it will not make any sense to them.
Lastly, remove the SIM card and also the micro SD card. Now that you know how to wipe your data, be sure to protect your privacy before getting rid of a device. This should alleviate the worry that strangers might gain access to any data on the device. Taking preventive measures now will allow you rest easy later and better protected against your stuff landing in the wrong hands.