The recent case of Guengalina Tavassi, whose hot videos and photos have mysteriously ended up on the net probably after a successful hacking attempt, brings to light the need to protect the data contained in your smartphone. The risks, especially for those who do sexting, are high: sextortion, in most cases, revenge porn in the worst hypothesis.
Sexting, we remember, consists in exchanging messages, photos and videos with a more or less explicitly erotic content with a partner. Of these messages and multimedia materials, traces can remain both on the smartphone of those who send them and on that of those who receive them. The recent introduction of ephemeral messages on WhatsApp, with all the recommendations on how to use them coming from WhatsApp itself, are confirmation of this. Sextortion is the extortion carried out by those who manage to steal sexual material, while revenge porn is something even more odious: an ex-partner who circulates our private material for revenge or to deliberately hurt us.
The case of Guendalina Tavassi seems instead a classic episode of phishing, only that who has scored it has probably caught a bigger and more valuable fish than he could hope. The former gieffina says today that the most likely thing is that her phone, in particular her iCloud account, was hacked after she clicked on an email asking her to reset her login data. Phishing "classic method", like the sparkling wine that hackers must have uncorked when they found the hidden folder containing the spicy photos and videos on Guendalina Tavassi's iCloud. The influencer had put in that hidden folder the hot material probably to avoid that her children, playing with mama's or daddy's cell phone, could find them.
A hidden folder, however, is not enough to protect your data. An encrypted folder protected by a PIN or biometric access mode, on the other hand, protects them and usually well. So here's a list of apps that, in cases like Guendalina Tavassi's, would have been more than useful to have installed on your smartphone.
Private Photo Vault
This is an app for smartphones that allows you to hide photos through a system of folders that act as bait. The system is well thought out: in fact, by creating these fake, password-protected folder paths, any malicious individuals would find themselves prying into folders with little ultimate satisfaction, since after much effort they would only end up with a handful of archival photos in their hands, nothing personal or potentially hot.
Moreover, if your smartphone is stolen, Private Photo Vault will send you reports of the attempted intrusions, along with photos of the thief taken through the front-facing camera and the location collected through GPS data.
In addition to security, the application also has editing features that allow you to act on the contrast and brightness of the images. Once edited, or in the original version, they can then be sent via a private web browser directly to the app.
Best Secret Folder
More than an app, it's a real trap for any malicious parties. Best Secret Folder camouflages itself among other folders by posing as a tool folder. When someone tries to access the folder, the app goes on alert and records every move. At the fourth wrong attempt, it takes a picture via the front camera and stores the incident in an accurate log.
As for your hot photos and videos, this app also lets you create hidden folders, where you can directly put the content you're saving.
Keepsafe Photo Vault
Another particularly useful app is Keepsafe Photo Vault that, through a complex security mechanism, lets you keep your most confidential content away from prying eyes. That it's secure is clear from the start: in fact, you can't see it within the list of recently used apps.
Then, it allows you to keep everything under lock and key thanks to the use of a PIN, a specific unlock pattern or through the fingerprint prompt. Also, by turning the phone with the screen down, Keepsafe Photo Vault will lock itself allowing for a corner save in case of a few too many glances uncovered out of the blue.
Available in a freemium version for iOS and Android, this app saves photos to the cloud, so you can always keep space free on your smartphone.
Secret Calculator
It's a calculator, true, but also an app to secretly store your files. Whether it's photos, videos, links or gif images, Secret Calculator can hide them behind a four-digit code, an unlock pattern, touch ID and an icon that looks like anything but a tempting folder.
Available for iOS, it also lets you save individual photos and albums, as well as allowing you to edit private videos through cropping, crop and slow motion functions.
Secret Photo Album
If what you're after is clean browsing, without touching your browser history, and a safe place to save your photos, Secret Photo Album is the app for you. Among the methodologies used to secure content are: a numeric code and password, unlock pattern and face ID for phones that support it.
As for snoop bait, however, this app lets you create fake passwords that allow you to open generic photos, thus keeping away from those personal images you want to keep private. Free and available for iOS, Secret Photo Album can also guard MMS and emails.
Hidden photos on iPhone and Android, how to do it
Hiding photos or videos without using a specific app is not that complex, you just need to know the right tricks. On iOS, Apple's operating system, this is possible by selecting the image or movie, tapping on the symbol in the lower left corner and choosing "Hide". That way, the file will be placed in the "Hidden" folder, which can be shown or not via the Settings menu.
As for Android, instead, you need to open the File Manager, create a new folder and rename it using a dot before the name (for example ".photo"). Once you put the contents in this folder, photos and videos will disappear from the gallery but will always remain available within the specific folder.
With both of these methods, however, photos and videos are hidden and not encrypted: so they are not really safe.