Avoid Cellphone Attacks with Help from Your Phone and Provider

The average person these days knows how to use their phone to shop, take photos, and use social media, but they don’t know how to avoid cybercriminal attacks on their phone. We’re so busy with and connected to our phones, doing whatever we think is important to us, that we forget that it’s a device that hackers would love to break into. If not that, they want to trick us into interacting with, responding to, and falling for their fake messages or ads.

And oftentimes those schemes work, simply because we are so busy on our phones that we aren’t paying attention to the daily game of chance and risk we’re playing.

How to avoid cellphone attacks.

We’re so eager to simply “plug and play” with our cellphones and devices, we tend not to look or think about security—keeping the content of our phones safe from cyberthieves and scammers who want to invade our world and steal our money or identity. Here’s what’s happening daily.

Fake text messages on everything from packages that can’t be delivered to toll-road fees that need to be paid.
SIM swapping is when a fraudster steals your phone number by duping your cell phone service provider.
AI-enhanced scams: a new trend in which scammers use Artificial Intelligence to target potential victims quickly and convincingly.

Fortunately, our cellphones already come with built-in security features, some of which you may not even be aware of. The phones block many numbers suspected of sending spam texts or messages. And if a phone call to you has a likelihood of being from a scammer, your provider will tag the call with the message “POTENTIAL SPAM,” giving you the choice to decline to answer.

But today’s phones go further than that. Let’s take a look.

The new Call Screening from iPhone.

Imagine having an assistant or secretary who could tell you who is calling on your phone, after taking some information from the caller, so you can decide whether to answer. Imagine no more.

That’s what the new Call Screening features do on the latest iOS 26 iPhone. Without our phone ringing and disturbing you in the first place. When a call from an unrecognized number comes in, your phone won’t ring. (An unrecognized number isn’t in your contacts, or a number you haven’t called or texted before.) The caller is asked to give their name and the reason for the call. Their reply is turned into a message you see on your screen. Then you can decide whether to reply. It’s sort of like getting a text message about the caller.

Those with an iPhone that offers Call Screening need to “opt in” and enable the feature. Once that’s done, they can customize it in a few ways as well.

What about Android? It has something similar.

Android phones use a feature called Scam Detection that not only screens calls but also detects potential scams. Here’s how it works:

You get a call, and after the screening, you take it.
Scam Detection goes to work as you’re on the call. It analyzes the call in real time, in the background, and watches for clues that indicate it could be a scam.
If the feature detects something fishy, it will make your phone vibrate or beep, or display a visual warning. You’ll know, but the scammer won’t. It’s then up to you to end the call.

In a way, that’s like having a smart car that alerts you when you’re veering into another lane or getting too close to an object in front of you. You get a warning sign that you need to respond to.

Phone carriers are stepping up their game, too.

It’s too bad phone carriers don’t inform us about the safety features they offer to help us avoid cellphone attacks, because they do have that information. For instance, AT&T has an app called Active Armor. It actively blocks incoming messages it knows are fraudulent, plus it also spots and tags possible spam. You can use it to create categories of calls you want to block, send automatically to voicemail, or let through.

What types of categories are there? How about political-themed calls, surveys, telemarketers or robocalls. Again, you can customize the feature to work however you want.

As mentioned before, phone carriers and phone manufacturers have security features for users, but unfortunately, promoting them isn’t at the top of their list. What is? New subscribers, more extended contracts, upgrades, and more. Competition is fierce and, sadly, their business is about getting and keeping more customers, not about safety and security.

So where does that leave you? On your own, but that’s not a totally bad thing.

Explore the security options available to avoid cellphone attacks.

Here are a few steps you can take to learn how to protect your phone.

Go to YouTube. YouTube is a fantastic resource for research and learning. For example, you could search for “Android phone special security features” and explore the results.
Visit your phone manufacturer’s website. If you have an iPhone, go to Apple.com and look up iPhone. Explore the security features and discover what you’ve been missing.
Do a Google search with generative AI. Google these days provides fast, thorough answers to queries thanks to its new Generative AI feature. So, if you were to Google the phrase, “what are the top five security features on my Samsung smartphone?” you’ll get a complete answer. Just be sure to research each feature independently afterward, since AI can sometimes make mistakes.
Visit your phone provider’s website. As mentioned earlier, AT&T, Verizon, and other cell phone service providers offer security features you might not know about. The more you know, the safer you’ll be.

Visit the Learning Center at WhatIsMyIPAddress.com.

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