6 Signs your phone may have been hacked
Noticeable decrease in battery life While a phone’s battery
Noticeable decrease in battery life While a phone’s battery life inevitably decreases over time, a smartphone that has been compromised by malware may start to display a significantly decreased lifespan. This is because the malware – or spy app – may be using up phone resources to scan the device and transmit the information back to a criminal server.
Sluggish performance
freestar Do you find your phone frequently freezing, or certain applications crashing? This could be down to malware that is overloading the phone’s resources or clashing with other applications.
You may also experience continued running of applications despite efforts to close them, or even have the phone itself crash and/or restart repeatedly.
High data usage Another sign of a compromised phone is an unusually high data bill at the end of the month, which can come from malware or spy apps running in the background, sending information back to its server.
Outgoing calls or texts you didn’t send If you’re seeing lists of calls or texts to numbers you don’t know, be wary – these could be premium-rate numbers that malware is forcing your phone to contact; the proceeds of which land in the cyber-criminal’s wallet. In this case, check your phone bill for any costs you don’t recognize.
Mystery pop-ups While not all pop-ups mean your phone has been hacked, constant pop-up alerts could that your phone has been infected with adware,a form of malware that forces devices to view certain pages that drive revenue through clicks. Even if a pop-up isn’t the result of a compromised phone, many may be phishing links that attempt to get users to type in sensitive info – or download more malware.
Unusual activity on any accounts linked to the device If a hacker has access to your phone, they also have access to its accounts – from social media to email to various lifestyle or productivity apps. This could reveal itself in activity on your accounts, such as resetting a password, sending emails, marking unread emails that you don’t remember reading, or signing up for new accounts whose verification emails land in your inbox.
In this case, you could be at risk for identity fraud, where criminals open new accounts or lines of credit in your name, using information taken from your breached accounts. It’s a good idea to change your passwords – without updating them on your phone – before running a security sweep on your phone itself.
What to do if your phone is hacked If you’ve experienced any of these symptoms of a hacked smartphone, the best first step is to download a mobile security app.
For Android, we like Bitde fender or McAfee for their robust feature sets and high ratings from independent malware analysis labs.
And while iPhones may be less prone to hacks, they aren’t totally immune. Lookout for iOS flags apps that are acting maliciously, potentially dangerous Wi-Fi networks, and if the iPhone has been jailbroken which increases its risk for hacking.
𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 😊😊