Signs Your Phone Was Hacked

There are many ways hackers can mess with your phone. How to recognize that your phone is hacked?, check this out!.

1. Mysterious Apps

You find new apps on your phone and you did not install them yourself. Sometimes phone manufacturers and service providers can actually install new apps on your phone as you update it, but it is better to be safe than sorry. You have to make sure the apps are legit. You can Google search them and see what other users or better yet reliable websites say about the apps. If it was neither the manufacturer nor you who installed the app, it must have been hackers.

2. Apps Strange Behavior

Some apps stopped working like they used to, while new apps you never installed are doing just fine on your phone. Your old apps are in trouble something is interfering with their proper functionality and it is most likely some malware on your phone.

3. Battery Suddenly Dropped

Your phone has suddenly started to run out of juice very quickly. If you noticed your phone's battery lifespan has become way too short, it must be for a reason. This can happen when there is an unknown app running on your phone, such apps or an in background mode without notice. So you don't even have to start them but they still take away your phone's energy.

4. Slow Phone Perfomance

Your smartphone seems slower than it used to be. We often think slower operation speed is the reason of our phones old age. In fact just like shorter battery life, it can be caused by malware running in the background on your phone. Those bad apps transfer data from your phone, so it's performance drops a lot. A smartphone is smart but hackers are sometimes even smarter.

5. Unusual High Temperature

If your phone gets warm your phone gets warm, even when you don't make a call or work with it. You're probably used to feeling the warm touch of your communication tool and you might even like it especially when it gets cold, but warming up for no reason, is not a good sign. Again it means there is an unknown app making your phone work so hard that it warms up.

6. Unusual Phone Behavior

Your phone reboots itself, switches off, dials numbers, or starts applications, you might like to believe self rebooting or dialing numbers is the result of paranormal activity and you're about to call Ghostbusters. Sorry to tell you this, but if it's not a system breakdown that could be tapping.

7. Mysterious Outgoing Calls  

Unknown phone numbers appear in your recent calls and it costs you. Hackers can proxy through your device to make expensive international phone calls. They can also use your infected device to make calls to companies which charge for them. Of course they don't actually call overseas themselves, they offer this paid service to their customers so they get profits.

8. Unknown Message In and Out

Your phone is sending and receiving strange text messages just like unknown numbers in your recent calls. You can find text messages you did not actually send from your phone. It can also happen to your email if you are using it from your phone. If you don't notice it yourself, your friends or colleagues might tell you about it when they receive weird messages from you. Do not ignore it.

9. Can’t Shutdown The Phone

You cannot switch off your device as you are trying to switch your device off. It starts opening different apps, increasing delighting, and so on. It is very wrong and it is most likely not the manufacturers fault.

10. Noises/Echoes during calls

If you hear noises or echo during calls and you haven't had them in this location before, it means someone else has access to your phone. They might be tracking your phone and listening to your conversation.

11. Strange Websites in Browser

Websites appear different than before in your mobile browser. It can be a sign that someone has installed malware on your phone. It can be reading your online communication and tracking your activities. it's somewhere between your browser and the internet, and stops the sites from displaying normally.

12. Unusual High Data Transfer

If you have a data monitoring app, you can sometimes see your mobile data usage growing way too fast. It can cost extra charges if you pay for a certain amount of traffic per month and it is one of the signs your phone is not only used by you. You can also try finding detailed app traffic usage in your phone settings. It tells us exactly how much mobile data each of your apps is using. You recently installed that app from a new source and it is eating your data like crazy. That app could be malware.

13. Pop-Ups

Pop-ups start appearing on your device out of nowhere. You are informed that you just won the lottery or a new IPhone. All you have to do is click one button and it's yours. Such popups on your phone are likely produced by malware.

14. Blocked Email

Email sent from your phone are blocked by spam filters. It can be assigned a third party is reading your emails. How if they got control over your phone it could have changed your email configuration to send all your mails via some unauthorized server. Hackers probably have direct access to that server.

15. Can’t Make Phone Calls

You can't make calls or they're being dropped. If you experience calls being dropped the inability to make calls at times when you appear to have good signal strength, or strange noises occurring during your phone conversations. Something may be amiss normally. These problems are indicative of technical issues unrelated to a breach, but that is not always the case.

If you see any of these signs on your phone, try running mobile anti-malware software, delete all the apps you have not installed, and unreliable apps eating too much traffic. If it is possible you can also reset your phone and go back to its original settings. If that does not seem enough to you, consult a professional. We all know prevention is better than cure, so here's what you can do to protect your phone from being hacked.

If you receive a message with a link and you cannot see the full URL, never open it. If you charge your phone via an unknown computer when connected, choose only charging. Don't use the remember passwords function, switch off the automatic connection to public Wi-Fi networks instead choose them manually. One more thing about Wi-Fi networks, avoid networks with suspicious names such as free internet or Wi-Fi Free. Choose those which are protected with a password especially if you are somewhere like a café.

Don't make online purchases or fund transfers on public Wi-Fi networks. If you use Android, install a reliable antivirus program and of course add a password to your phone. Keep your phone safe.