Your smartphone isn’t just an indispensable gadget you use for socializing, gaming, and shopping. All these activities make it exceptionally valuable to hackers keen on collecting personal data, taking over your accounts, or using its computing power to further their evil agendas. Wondering whether your phone has been hacked? Here’s how to tell and what you can do about it.
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The Telltale Signs of a Compromised Phone
There are many ways in which a compromised phone can act up, all of which fall under the broad category of unusual behavior. While many don’t necessarily mean your phone has been hacked, they’re a good indicator. Here’s what to pay attention to.
Fast battery drain and higher temperatures
All smartphone batteries become less efficient with time. However, suddenly having to charge the phone much more frequently than usual can indicate active malware. It works in the background, disrupting services, tracking your actions, and sending data back to a hacker’s server.
Some malware designed to farm cryptocurrency can strain the phone’s CPU and GPU. Other variants may take control of the camera and force it to run continuously. Both result in high temperatures even when the phone isn’t active. If it remains hot when idle, even when you close all active apps and restart the phone, there’s a good chance sneaky malware is at fault.
Worse overall performance
Malware can be a resource hog or disrupt regular apps from acting correctly. A lagging UI, apps that take ages to load, and slow responses to incoming calls all point toward an infection.
Strange ads and new app icons
Many legitimate apps display ads or send push notifications, hoping that you’ll visit a sponsor or buy something in their shops. Things become concerning if you start receiving such messages more frequently than usual, and the ads start promoting shady websites or inappropriate content.
While a lot of malware hides in the shadows, some will add icons to your home screen. These can be outright suspicious, like gambling or other apps you know you’ve never installed yourself. Others are sneakier. For example, they can disguise themselves as a widely used payment platform and steal your account data if you try to log in.
Unusually high data usage
Many malicious activities involve straining your internet connection. Hackers might be transferring the contents of your folders or downloading additional payloads once the malware makes it onto your phone. The traffic spikes might be harder to notice if you have an unlimited data plan. Still, a lower top download speed or YouTube videos that load slowly while everything else works fine is a good indicator.
Your phone starts making calls or sending text messages
Some malware can spread exponentially by infecting one phone and then reaching out to others. Back in 2019, ransomware called FileCoder tapped into infected phones’ contacts and sent convincing text messages that persuaded contacts to install a harmful app.
Weird browser behavior
Malware can mess with your browsing experience in many annoying ways. The browser may open and close erratically, or your homepage might change. Being forcefully redirected to sketchy websites is another sign, as are lots of popups and warnings urging you to visit sites or download “fixes” for the infection.
How to Protect Yourself
Making your phone hack-proof comes down to behaving responsibly and installing the right security tools. iPhone users might have a leg up due to Apple’s closed ecosystem, but everyone can become a victim if they’re not careful.
Outright avoiding unofficial app sources is the easiest yet one of the most impactful behaviors you should adopt. Stick to the App Store or Google Play since they have standards that keep most malicious apps out. Even so, make sure to read user reviews and use sound judgment each time you download a new app.
Ensuring your OS and apps receive automatic updates is another essential precaution that takes little effort. Having the latest fixes protects your phone from known exploits. Regularly take stock of the apps on your phone and uninstall the ones you don’t use anymore. The same goes for apps that aren’t receiving updates.
A password manager for Android or iOS is key to your protection efforts. It will create strong, unique passwords and store them in an encrypted vault. The manager can fill them in automatically, so you don’t have to remember each one, and keyloggers can’t capture them. Password managers are also useful for spotting and avoiding fake websites since they’ll only let you enter login info on the genuine website.
Additionally, password managers provide an extra layer of convenience and security across all of your devices. They synchronize your login credentials seamlessly, meaning you’ll always have access wherever you use your device, laptop, or tablet.
Conclusion
It’s easy to take our phones and all the amazing things they do for granted. Don’t wait until you experience the above symptoms firsthand! Instead, start taking its security more seriously by browsing safely and using helpful cybersecurity tools to keep hackers at bay.
Andrej Fedek is the creator and the one-person owner of two blogs: InterCool Studio and CareersMomentum. As an experienced marketer, he is driven by turning leads into customers with White Hat SEO techniques. Besides being a boss, he is a real team player with a great sense of equality.