How To Know If Your Phone Has Spyware or Is Hacked ?
Today, smartphones are some of the most popularly used devices. In fact, millions of people are avid users. Smartphones are used for purposes related to e-commerce, voice and video calling, and text messaging, among other things. However, with greater usage, there’s also an increase in the risks involved. These risks are related to malware, hackers, viruses, and spyware. But with advancements in both technology and innovation, hackers and spyware have evolved. Now, it can be hard to even know whether your phone has been hacked. Here are the top 5 ways to know this.
Suspicious Activity Through Your Accounts
One of the most common ways of knowing if your phone has been hacked is by closely monitoring activity on your accounts. It is fairly common for hackers and spyware to send strange messages to other users on online platforms and social media accounts. For instance, several victims of such behavior report that their friends and acquaintances on sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter get messages from them that they don’t remember sending. These messages often contain links to sites that could infect their devices with viruses and spyware. Therefore, if you notice messages or posts you did not remember writing, there’s a good chance your phone has been hacked.
Greater Data Usage
For most people, phones are their portal to everything. Access to news, current affairs, and social media trends is easily possible with these devices. In fact, this has been made even simpler with services like Spectrum Mobile. These allow users to get a wide variety of features that are reasonably priced. In fact, you can even check how much mobile data you’ve consumed. However, if your phone has been hacked or infected with spyware, you’ll notice that your data usage is always on the higher side.
Typically, browsing doesn’t take up too much data. Thus, if you think you haven’t used many high-intensity applications, your phone may have gotten hacked. Malware, viruses, and hackers are often linked to high data usage.
Slower Performance
Is your phone performing slower than usual? If the answer is yes, your culprit could likely e hackers or spyware. When a device is attacked by such external forces, it slows down in performance. As a result, users experience greater delays and lag. This means that your applications may take longer to load and refresh. In fact, you may even notice that your phone takes a long time to switch between accounts. Most people assume this is an internet issue. As a result, the problem often goes unnoticed and unchecked.
However, it’s important to immediately check for hackers and spyware if you experience sluggish performance with your mobile phone. Malware and viruses often increase the chances of apps freezing or crashing.
Apps on Your Phone You Didn’t Download
This is one of the most common ways hackers can control the data and activity through your mobile phone. A large number of people don’t even notice that they’re being attacked by hackers or spyware because they have a large variety of apps downloaded on their devices. This makes it difficult to figure out if anything strange or new has been downloaded.
Thus, it’s always important to keep your apps to a minimum. In addition to this, use applications that are verified or official. Random, shady apps can do more harm than good. If you want something very cheap on the App Store, it’s probably too good to be true. In most cases, such apps just exist to hack into your smartphone. Therefore, regularly check your device for any unusual app. Such apps can access your camera and private information too.
Lower Battery Levels
Another major sign of your mobile phone being hacked is low battery. If your battery is running out quicker than usual, you could be under attack by hackers or similar malware. If you’re barely using your phone for anything other than texting and your battery levels still run low, stay alert. Moreover, also look out for sudden drops in battery percentage. For instance, if your battery randomly goes from 50% to 20% in less than 20 minutes, your smartphone could be hacked.
Summing Up
With hackers and malware at an all-time high, it’s important to protect your device against such threats. For this, you need to have your smartphone frequently updated. Make sure it has the latest software update installed. This reduced the chances of malware because of more advanced features, In addition to this, protect your devices and accounts with strong passwords. You also should be careful not to use the same password for different accounts and websites.
Moreover, it’s important to avoid public Wifi This can make your mobile phone more vulnerable to hackers and spyware. Furthermore, always look out for signs like lower battery levels, unusual activity, slower performance, and greater data usage.
[…] between your website and the user’s browser can be encrypted via a security protocol called HTTP Secure, also called HTTPS. This stops man-in-the-middle attacks from hackers, which use sniffer tools that […]