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Your smartphone stores a lot of personal information. Let’s face it, your whole life is in this thing. You use your cell phone every day, sending emails and text messages, making calls, listening to voicemail messages, taking and sharing videos and photos, using social media, and more.
How To Tell If There Is Spyware On Your Phone
But why would someone spy on you? What would they care about the information on your cell phone? There are many reasons why someone would want to track your smartphone based activities.
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Your significant other (or ex-significant ex) may ask what you do when they’re not around. You may have important business information stored on your device. If you have money in your bank account or anything left on your credit line, someone will love to steal it.
So, is someone spying on your phone? Do they use cell phone spy software? How do you know someone is tracking you on your cell phone? What can you do if it is? This is a good question and why I am writing this article.
Even if you protect your smartphone with a strong password, it can still be hacked. Innocent-looking Android apps have been found to contain spyware, and if you’ve jailbroken your iPhone, someone can install spyware on your device.
In this guide, I will tell you 10 ways to tell if someone is spying on your smartphone and what you can do to stop them.
Mobile Spyware: Identification, Removal, And Prevention
Fortunately, there are warning signs that you can see that will warn you that there is spyware infecting your device and tracking your activities.
While some signs are harder to spot than others, if you keep a regular eye on your device’s performance, you can see if something is wrong with your device.
Has your monthly data usage increased? Is your device suddenly using more data than normal, against your monthly data allowance, but you haven’t changed your online habits? This could mean that someone has installed spyware on your device.
Low quality spy tools will try to send as much data as possible about your device to their home base (aka worse). This can use a large amount of data.
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At the other end of the spectrum, some spyware manufacturers are quite adept at this, and their sneaky applications are more selective about the information they seek out and send home. This makes the detection bit more difficult.
It all comes down to making sure you stay on top of your monthly data usage and paying attention to any sudden spikes in usage you see.
While you can contact your wireless carrier to check how much data you’re using, you can also check your device. This means you can quickly check your data usage without having to search your provider’s website or app for data usage information.
To check your mobile data usage on an Android 10 device, do this. (The process should be the same on other Android versions.):
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To check your cellular data usage on an iPhone running iOS 17, do this. (The process should be the same on iOS versions and iPads other than iPadOS.):
While you should expect your iPhone or Android phone’s screen to light up when you receive an incoming call, message, or other type of notification, your smartphone’s screen shouldn’t light up for no reason when it’s in standby mode.
If you see your device’s screen light up, hear an unexpected noise or sound, and then see no new notifications on the screen, something may be going on.
Does your smartphone keep restarting for no apparent reason or without restarting manually? Someone has unauthorized remote access to your smartphone.
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Unexpected reboots can indicate that someone has remote admin access and can reboot your device at will. This also means that they have all kinds of access to your device and the personal data stored on it.
It could also mean that the latest app or operating system you recently downloaded has a bug. Check for new device OS or app updates. See if you can re-copy the device using the app that was open when it happened.
On your Android device, you can install and run anti-virus or anti-malware software to scan your device. iOS users will find that antivirus scanners are not available and in sandboxed iOS, there is more likely a bug in the app or OS that is causing reboots.
In the days of analog cellular networks, strange background noise and unstable connections are to be expected. However, today’s dedicated digital cellular networks usually provide a stable and generally noise-free connection.
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So if you hear strange noises in the background or (even worse) hear a voice that does not belong to the person you are calling, there is a possibility that someone is monitoring or recording your conversation.
Have you received unexpected messages with strange characters, or have you reported that your friends or other parties have received strange or offensive messages from your phone?
This could be a sign that you have spyware or malware installed on your smartphone. SMS worms spread in the online world by sending text messages with links embedded in them. If the victim clicks on the link, the worm can infect their smartphone.
On your Android device, you can install and run security software such as antivirus or anti-malware to scan your device. iOS users probably don’t need to worry about this type of worm as it usually targets Android devices.
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Also, be careful about clicking on links in these text messages, as these links can also be used to trick you through phishing schemes to steal your personal and/or business information. This applies to both Android and iOS device platforms.
If you notice that your device’s battery life begins to deteriorate rapidly and unexpectedly, this may mean that your battery is old and needs to be replaced. Or, it could mean that your device is infected with spyware and the extra load placed on your smartphone drains the battery faster than usual.
Spyware monitors all your activity on the device and sends information about that activity to malicious actors who infect your device. Reduced battery life is often accompanied by increased data usage due to spyware activity.
Taking screenshots, copying and pasting text, recording your conversations, and possibly taking photos or recording videos can drain battery life at an alarming rate. This is especially evident when your smartphone is supposed to be idle.
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If you’re not sure if it’s just an old battery or real spyware, test it by trying a different set of batteries or testing your device’s battery on another device. Then monitor your battery usage.
Sorry iPhone users, your device’s battery is non-removable. However, you can make an appointment at the Genius Bar and they will check your battery for you. Users running iOS 14 and later can take advantage of a privacy feature that notifies you when an app on your device uses its camera or microphone.
If the app uses your iPhone’s camera, you’ll see an indicator light at the top of your device’s screen, as shown here:
If the app uses your iPhone’s internal microphone, you’ll see an indicator light at the top of your device’s screen, as shown here:
Signs Someone Is Spying On Your Phone
While it’s perfectly normal to see one of these indicators light up when an app is using the camera or microphone, seeing them light up when you’re not actively recording video or audio should be a warning sign that something’s up.
Easily check your device to find out which apps currently have access to your device’s microphone or camera.
These instructions are for Android 10 in general. The steps will be the same for custom builds of Android 10 or other Android versions. Consult your device manufacturer for more information.
While a high battery temperature can be an indication of some technical problem, it can also indicate that unauthorized activity such as spyware activity is happening in the background.
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If you haven’t used your cell phone recently and it’s just sitting on your desk, it shouldn’t feel warm or hot to the touch. If it’s too hot, then spyware can work behind the scenes, collecting information and sending it back to the base of bad actors.
Your smartphone, like a Mac or Windows computer, tries to stop all active processes before shutting down or restarting.
And, just like your computer, sometimes these processes can shut down and prevent or significantly slow down the shutdown process. While this can happen on any device, you may notice it happening more often than usual if your device is infected with spyware.
You may notice that your smartphone is taking over
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