Refurbished phones, iPhones and Android, are everywhere; did you buy one? BEWARE!

If you are planning to get a refurbished iPhone or Android phone in order to save money, then know that this step of yours might put you at huge risk of getting hacked. Yes! Saving a little money might cost you a lot eventually since these older devices, whether they are iPhones of Android phones, could be exploited by hackers. Why? It is very simple. Older devices that run outdated versions of iOS or Android don’t receive critical security patches or updates from their manufacturers and that makes your mobile vulnerable to cyber attacks. A recent report shared by CNet warns users of such attacks on their phones. In fact, importantly, most old phones will also not be able to use social media apps like WhatsApp. Reason is that WhatsApp itself withdraws support from old phones. This happened to iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c, which will lose support in October 2022.

This is why Android as well as iOS users must keep their phones up to date and install the latest security patch or update to protect against known/unknown threats. However, smartphone companies keep dropping the latest security patches from some of the older handsets after a span of certain years - anything between 3 to 7 years, due to their hardware limitations. Christoph Hebeisen, director of the security intelligence company Lookout, is quoted by CNet as as saying, “We do not consider it safe to run a device that does not receive security patches. Critical security vulnerabilities become public knowledge every few weeks, or months, and once a system is out of support, then users who continue to run it become susceptible to the exploitation of known vulnerabilities.”

He also said that a phone without the latest security updates cane be accessed by hackers. In fact, email, contact information, banking details and much more are under threat of theft.

That would leave all users eyeing refurbished and old phones high and dry. However, considering that the market is full of new affordable Android phones, buyers should turn to them. The most important thing is that these phones will have the latest OS and security patches, making them that much more safer for quite a few years.