Selling Your Phone? Make Sure to Securely Erase It First! @HotspotShield #HotspotShield

Disclosure:  I am a Hotspot Shield Ambassador that is compensated and will be sharing my honest opinion.

With the holidays in full swing there are people selling old phones and buying themselves new but used phones, myself included.  To make some extra spending money I listed one of my old phones and actually two of my sister’s old phones. Before I sold them I made sure to do a Factory Reset on them, but my sister didn’t even know about that.  If she was selling the phone herself, she would have sold it as is full of her personal information unaware of all the information on it!  From emails to phone numbers to pictures to saved passwords, cell phones contain so much personal information on them.  Yes a Factory Reset may not wipe everything off for a real hacker, but it is at least something!

To Factory Reset your phone or even a used phone you maybe bought off eBay for yourself, use the guide below to do a Factory Reset:

• Android: Menu – Settings – Privacy – Factory Data Reset
• iPhone: Settings – General – Reset – Reset All Settings
• Blackberry: Options – Security Options – General Settings – Menu – Wipe Handheld
• Windows 7: Settings – About – Reset Phone

Then before you sell your old phone, make sure you remove the SIM card or any SD cards you have in it!

But what about staying safe on your smartphone while your using it?  One way to keep your information safe is to use a VPN (virtual private network) such as HotSpot Shield.  It is a great way to keep your browsing and shopping to yourself and secure.  It also protects against malware, which  includes a variety of hostile computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, dishonest adware, and other malicious programs.