How To Tell If Your Phone Has Spyware On It – Modern smartphones are fascinating machines. These tiny computers have enough power to store our entire digital lives. But if it doesn’t fit on the phone, it sure does on the cloud. All our music, pictures and conversations live on these smart devices. It’s more convenient, but it also makes you a target for espionage.
There are many potential spies to worry about. For starters, hackers, fraudsters and other digital attackers are trying to get your personal information. Then you also have to worry about the jealousy of your boyfriend/girlfriend, your phone’s ex-owner, your parents, and even the government.
How To Tell If Your Phone Has Spyware On It
You can find out if someone is spying on your smartphone if it starts behaving strangely. Some indications include performance issues, rising temperatures, reduced battery life, odd messages, strange sounds during calls, etc. Continue reading to learn more.
Ways To Tell If Someone Is Tracking & Spying On Your Phone
Editor’s Note: All instructions in this article were performed using a Google Pixel 7 running Android 14 and an Apple iPhone 12 Mini running iOS 17.3. Please note that the steps may be different if you are using a different manufacturer’s device and using different software.
How can you even know if someone is spying on your Android phone or tablet? It’s a bit tricky, but there are a few red flags to look for. We will show you some of them.
Spyware is constantly finding your data, working hard in the background and eating up your resources. This is why devices often slow down when they run this sneaky software in the background. You need to worry if your phone suddenly drops performance for no apparent reason. It can happen for other reasons too, so first read our dedicated post on how to speed up your smartphone.
By the way, you can also notice this in iPhones. Contrary to popular belief, iPhones are also vulnerable to spyware attacks.
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It’s normal to notice that your phone doesn’t last as long as it did when you first bought it. Batteries start to discharge over time. Plus, you’ll likely be sending more work to devices as you continue to grow your app collection. However, sudden drops in battery life are not typical.
Tracking software can take up a lot of resources. These run in the background, running your GPS and doing other things… sometimes all the time. Unexpected battery drain could mean someone is tracking your Android or iPhone device, or it could be something else on your phone that’s draining all the juice. Check out our list of common battery drain problems for reasons other than spyware.
We recommend that you monitor the applications that use your phone’s resources. If you find the odd app on the list, you should check it out. For example, the Notepad application should not consume 30% of the battery.
The tracking application tries to constantly update the attacker. That means it will need data. Often, a lot. Have you noticed unusual data usage on your Android or iPhone? A possible attack could be the reason why this is happening.
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Is your Android phone or iPhone too hot? This is normal during heavy gaming sessions or while charging, but it shouldn’t happen when the phone is idle, sitting in your pocket or doing light work. If you notice unusual temperatures on your phone, it may be a victim of spyware.
We are not talking about paranormal activity, although it may seem that way. Spy phones sometimes make strange sounds during calls. This may include white noise, beeps or echoes. Of course, we all have bad income from time to time, but it shouldn’t be a habit.
Another common sign that your device has been compromised is random reboots and shutdowns. Don’t go crazy with this like some bugged phones sometimes do, but if you see this kind of strange behavior, keep your eyes open for other clues.
Are you getting any strange text messages? They can be people with lots of letters and numbers that look like codes. Maybe just a random conversation from an unknown number. They can be anything really.
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Attackers often use them to communicate with devices and issue commands to them. For example, if an attacker needs your location, they can request it by sending a message with a predetermined code.
Have you noticed strange apps popping up out of nowhere? These can come from malware or spyware that can often download and install apps on your smartphone without your approval.
Go through the entire list of apps and see if there is anything out of the ordinary. In addition, some of these applications may be hidden. You can see the full list of apps in the Settings app.
Notification lights, sounds, and screen activation are standard, but it’s not okay to see these things happening when they shouldn’t. You should be concerned if your phone shows signs of activity when you are not doing anything with it. If the screen lights up or the phone makes a sound and there are no notifications, it could be a sign that someone is spying on you.
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Hackers can complicate turning off or restarting the phone. Some spyware can even prevent these actions. These bad guys want to be able to control your phone and communicate with it without any problems. Closing the facility would be a serious restriction for them.
Check your browser history to see if there is anything unusual. More specifically, try to find out if there is anything about phone spy software. Someone can use your browser to download spyware. Similarly, people who want to steal your private data can also browse their website to see what they can take.
Has your keyboard auto-repair stopped working properly? This could be a sign that someone is spying on you. More precisely, it can be a keylogger. Keyloggers record everything you type and spies can get this information and see everything you typed using your smartphone. They are known to interfere with the automatic repair function and can cause some problems.
Spyware, malware and similar applications are not available in the Google Play Store. These need to be installed manually (also called side loading). Android gives you freedom to do this, but it doesn’t really make it easy. You must explicitly allow your device to accept the installation of apps from unknown sources other than the Play Store.
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If you never do this, this feature should be disabled. If it is on, it means that someone else turned on the installation from an unknown source.
You can’t download apps on iPhones unless you’ve jailbroken them. But that’s another topic. Learn more about iPhone jailbreak here.
The Google Play Store does everything it can to protect you, but remember, we’re running Android. We can easily install third-party applications and be at risk of being compromised. We recommend that you do not install apps from anywhere other than the Google Play Store. Manually installing apps may have its benefits, but it’s a popular way for hackers and spies to get software onto your smartphone.
Now let’s talk about rooted phones. Owning a rooted phone is definitely an advantage for some of us, but it comes with some serious risks. Root users can break into the system and modify the code. This could make the fight against spyware very difficult. Remember Avast! Mobile security? The app could install phone tracking software directly from system files, making the solutions survive a factory reset. He did it for your security, but who says hackers won’t do it for the opposite reason?
How To Know If Someone Is Spying On Your Apple Iphone?
We advise you not to root your phone unless you are very sure of your actions. You should also consider unlocking your phone if it already is. And of course the same goes for iPhone users. Avoid jailbreaking your iOS device unless you really know what you’re doing.
Do you think someone is spying on your phone? The first step is to try to manually find any suspicious files or applications. You can use any file manager for this. Another option is to look in the app drawer.
Oh, and remember, these guys are trying to keep things low-key, so chances are the app won’t just list its real name and logo. It could be disguised as something else, like a notepad app. Go there and see if there’s anything out of the ordinary, and if you don’t remember installing it (and it wasn’t a prepackaged app), it would be wise to remove it.
Spyware is hard to find; it is also difficult to clean. The only way to make sure everything is gone is to wipe your phone and start over. I do this every time I get a new device. It doesn’t matter if the phone looks like it has already been reset; I did it again.
Mobile Spyware: How To Tell If Your Phone Is Being Monitored
Just do a factory reset and the phone will be in the same state it was in when you first turned it on (at least software-wise). Remember that this will erase everything, so make a good backup.
Many people believe that antivirus apps are fake, and while that may be true, it’s not always the case. It is very rare to find malware on it
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