Keep your Sports Gadgets Safe by Enabling Privacy

With technological advancements, the method used by fitness professionals to improve performance has evolved. A variety of technologically advanced devices including smart watches and other gadgets offering modern outputs and ease of use are selected. It is important not to forget that increased technological advancements mean more cautiousness for privacy protection.  According to CyberGhost (CG) found, a major percentage of athlete smart watches and stay-fit applications are at the risk of user data falling into the wrong hands. In other words, ensure that the gadget you are using provides protection against malicious attempts.

The Small Gadget Risks you are unaware of

For athletes, such devices help in improving performance levels but extract a lot of data as well. This includes, sleep patterns, rate of heart beat and biometric verification details as well. If this data is accessed without any user protection, it can be misused. Some high level risks related to these gadgets are listed below.

• Data Transmission without Security: Most fitness devices perform day sync with applications. For this purpose, Bluetooth, WI-Fi or Mobile Data are used. Hence, with the vulnerability, hackers can easily extract this information if there is no dependable encryption.
• Minimum Account Security: There are high chances that an athlete account may be misused until a proper protection mechanism is implemented. Two factor authentications is used a lot for user data protection.
• Sharing on Third Part Platforms: A lot of organizations sell user data without consent which increases the chances of a successful hacking attempt.
• Obsolete application versions should be replaced with latest ones: A device is more likely to get infected if the right application version is not used. The chances of the user data, getting misused is mostly when the latest version of the application is not used.

Tips to Protect Sports Gadgets

To protect your sports gadgets without any doubts, the following methods are used.

1. Usage of Strong Passwords and Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)is mandatory.

A fitness application should always have a tough password and beefed with Enable 2-Factor Authentication.  This reduces the chances of any malicious attempt by hackers.

2. Regularly Update Firmware and Apps

Mobile Application and Firmware changes are identified from time to time.  Ensure that both firmware and mobile application are 100% updated at all times.

3. Trusting known Bluetooth and WI-Fi applications only

Transferring or accessing Bluetooth via random Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections is a mistake. Data Transfer /access should only be done via dependable sources.

4. Recheck Device Permissions and Privacy Settings

Restrict the permissions which the fitness application has. Location access should be restricted and only provided when no workable solution exists.

5. Do not opt for Third-Party Integrations

A lot of applications gain access to your device and all of them are not safe. Such applications attempt an access to the fitness data by promoting extra options. Such functionalities should be avoided.

6. Check Account Activity at Regular Intervals

Make an attempt to log in to your account on day to day basis. If anything unusual is observed, simply reset the confidential passwords. Along with that, report the issue to the application support team.

Why it is important for Athletes and Fitness Professionals to ensure privacy?

Apart from data protection, protecting your gadgets also ensures personal safety. If an intruder gets access to your residence, location then your whereabouts can be tracked. Lastly, it is not possible to modify and reset biometric data so the damages are long term.

With technological advancements, it is expected that fitness gadgets will further modernize. Real time analytics will be displayed via a digital imaging evolution.

This also means that the data count and records will increase resulting in higher risks for athletes.

Lastly, companies selling or making sports gadgets need to use website optimization methods for business expansion. In this way, they would have a dependable and secure online presence. In a nutshell, a professionally optimized website not only helps with rich user experience but also offers better data protection methods.

Summing It Up

A fitness procedure for athletes should focus more on physical improvements and not data privacy issues. Using the right strategy for sports gadgets protection will help you in enjoying fitness improvement features without thinking about data protection problems. Thus, be updated with data protection issues and run device updates in due course of time to follow a rigorous fitness routine with high security standards.