Your Android phone holds much more than just contacts and apps — it stores your personal, financial, and professional data. With cyberthreats growing in both number and sophistication, you need to be proactive about device security. This guide will walk you through the most common threats and show you how to defend your Android phone against them.

While Android devices are prone to hundreds of different cybersecurity threats, protecting your Android device doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. If you don’t want to spend a great deal of money on security, this guide will help you safeguard your Android phone or tablet without breaking the bank.

Because the Android operating system is open source, it’s easy for programmers to customize it and develop apps for it. But its main strength is also a weakness — criminals can easily access programming codes, find vulnerabilities, and distribute malware through Android apps.

Android is the most popular operating system in mobile technology, with millions of users worldwide. This also means that there are a great number of potential threats facing Android users. Protect your phone or tablet from lurking dangers and outright attacks by reading our guide.

More and more people are relying on Android tablets for work, hence cybercriminals are creating counterfeit apps that impersonate popular apps and try to misguide users. Today, there are reportedly over 2,000 fake apps on Google Play Store. The apps usually collect users’ sensitive data or infect devices with malware, which could lead to financial losses or identity theft.

The Android operating system is open source, which makes customization and app development easy. The problem is that cybercriminals can also access Android’s programming code, find vulnerabilities, and distribute malware through app stores. Here are some things you must do to avoid an infection.