Phone snatching has become a real problem in London. Balaclava-clad thieves whip around on electric bikes, swipe phones from the hands of pedestrians, and escape at pace. Last year alone there were 11,800 offences accounting for 33% of robberies in the capital. There simply aren’t enough police officers to keep petty crime like this in check, which has led to its rapid growth.
Furthermore, there are stories of people having their bank accounts drained despite having Face identification and two-factor authentication enabled. If a thief has your pin and access to your email and SMS messages, they can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time.
I’m not a cynic, nor do I want to propagate fear around phone snatching, but I’m considering a tightening of my financial security measures. Specifically removing all financial apps from my primary phone that I take with me, and having a secondary phone that stays at home used only for banking services.
The secondary phone is a relatively cheap insurance policy in the event my primary phone is stolen, and it provides an extra layer of defensive friction against anyone trying to access accounts that they find via email.
Do you, or anyone you know, do this? Or do you have a more secure method that you follow?