Experts told how to recognize a hacked smartphone

MOSCOW, 2 Oct — PRIME. There are a number of signs that may indicate that the smartphone has been remotely hacked, Group-IB digital forensics specialist Igor Mikhailov told Izvestia.

So, according to him, a hacker attack may be indicated by the fact that the smartphone began to heat up, quickly discharge, freeze or reboot by itself. Also, he can independently launch various applications or have a characteristic “echo” during a conversation.

At the same time, it can be difficult to detect access to the device of third parties, since spyware is as invisible as possible. As a rule, they turn for help when something has already happened – a large amount has disappeared from the account, they began to demand money from the owner of the gadget for not distributing information, for example, the contents of chats, videos or photos of private content.

“Hacked gadgets change their behavior. Wi-Fi, mobile Internet or another service turns on and off by itself, unknown applications appear that you have not installed. They may appear as an icon on the desktop or a menu item in the settings. That is it happens that you can’t even see it, so pay attention to the changes,” said Artur Karapetov, Synergy Academy teacher, Product Lead at Skolkovo.

An increase in Internet traffic can also indicate infection of the gadget – you can monitor it using various applications, including a mobile operator. If the phone is hacked, for example, in order to steal data, then they are sent to the attackers’ servers and, accordingly, traffic consumption increases.

The same thing happens with the battery. Applications running in the background, which a person may not even know about, lead to its discharge.

Sometimes users notice strange calls or SMS in the list of outgoing calls, call interruptions or changes in settings without the user’s knowledge, said Oksana Ulyaninkova, head of promising projects in the field of information security of the IT cluster of the Skolkovo Foundation.

“You can check the smartphone by examining the applications, accesses and permissions to them. It is necessary to scan the device with an antivirus for malware,” she said.