With the rise in camera smartphone use, people are capturing an exponential number of pictures. According to Photutorial data, 1.2 trillion photos were taken worldwide in 2021.
This number is expected to reach 1.72 trillion in 2022 and over 2 trillion by 2025, with 92.5% of these photos taken with smartphones – raising concerns about how safe these precious memories are when stored on a smartphone without a cloud backup in place.
Hacking
While the surge in cyber crimes poses a threat to users’ data, with hackers capable of remotely hacking your device and holding your private data at ransom, it has become important for smartphone users to make a more concerted effort to protect their data.
Cybercriminals have devised unique and elaborate methods to hack user data, including phishing to attain passwords, fake websites to steal banking information, and, more recently, photos and other data, which was witnessed in the numerous leaks of private information.
These cybercriminals search for vulnerabilities and exploit these in efforts to hack users. This is done by malicious software and even links to websites, easily able to phish visitors by their falsely authentic and trustworthy appearance.
Theft
Of course, theft or common misplacement is one sure method of losing all those precious memories. Without a proper backup, photos will be the first unattainable loss a smartphone user, with their device stolen, will face.
After losing a device, there is no way to regain photos unless you’ve backed all of these up to a cloud drive.
What can you do to protect your photos?
Thankfully there are scores of ways to keep photos and other smartphone data stored safely, with a low risk of these photos being hacked or stolen.
Here are some of our suggestions for storage options for photos on your smartphone:
Google Drive
Due to the high number of Android users globally, Google Drive is the most common and largest, offering users free cloud storage of up to 15GB of free storage. Storing photos in Google Drive will allow you to save photos from those big family gatherings, for example, at high resolution.
Google Photos
Google Photos is one of the best methods of storing photos. Open this app on your iOS or Android smartphone and turn on the automatic backup to ensure you never lose any images. The best feature of Google Photos is that uploading photos at a standard resolution doesn’t consume storage from your Google Drive.
Huawei Cloud
Ever unboxed your new Huawei smartphone only to miss the setup of your old one? Well, Huawei Cloud takes care of your photos, your apps, and your smartphone’s layout. Huawei Cloud is the best method to back up for Huawei fans after restoring your devices – it should look and feel just the way you’re used to.
iCloud
What would cloud storage be without the ‘i’ in front of it – proudly sponsored by Apple. iCloud (while users have been hacked through it previously) has fixed several security flaws making the platform safe for its users. If you swear by Apple – iCloud is the best platform to save and restore all photos on your iPhone.
IOL Tech