Are You Being Monitored? How to Detect If Your Cellphone is Being Tapped

Privacy in the digital age is valuable. Everything you do on the internet generates valuable data, the good news is you can untap your phone easily following these tips.

Data is everything and it attracts people from all walks of life. Some with honest intentions, some with questionable ones. As we grow increasingly dependent on technology, there are always people who would like to take advantage of that.

Spyware is an example of people snooping on you, invading your privacy, and collecting data on you. Your smartphone is a huge potential target for snoopers.

How to Detect If Your Phone Is Tapped

As spy apps improve, they get harder to detect. Unless you are vigilant, you could have spyware installed on your phone without knowing it.

You could have clicked on a link advertising Xfinity triple play that seemingly did nothing. It may have installed malware, adware or spyware on your phone without you noticing.

Luckily there are several ways to be sure. Here are a few tips that can help you figure out if your phone has spyware on it:

1. Check for Unusual Sounds
2. Look for Unusual Battery Drain
3. Try Powering off Your Phone
4. Watch for Suspicious Activity
5. Listen for Interference
6. Keep an Eye on Your Bill

Let’s get right into these helpful tips on detecting snoopers on your phone.

Check for Unusual Sounds

Strange background noises are often a sign of a tap on your phone. Strange noises do happen for other reasons as well and may not always be because of a tap.

However, you may need to check the other items on this list as well to be sure.

Your phone should be silent when you aren’t on a phone call. Try listening to your phone when it is not in use. Listen for clicking, beeping or static. These could be a sign of a tap.

Sometimes, these sounds can be inaudible to the human ear. You can work around this by using a sound bandwidth sensor. Set the sensor on low frequency and see if it detects several sounds per minute.

Look for Unusual Battery Drain

Be watchful for sudden changes in your phone’s battery usage. Tapping software and spy apps run on your phone’s battery and could be the reason behind sudden battery drains.

It would be best if you had an idea of what your normal battery usage patterns are. Both Android and iPhone smartphones let you check what apps consume the most battery.

On an iPhone, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Usage for details on your battery. On an Android phone, go to Settings > Device > Battery.

Older phones tend to start losing battery life after a year. So, on an old phone, tapping software may not be the reason behind unusual battery patterns.

Try Powering Your Phone Off

One way to check if your phone has tapping software is to power it off. If your phone suddenly has problems shutting down, you could have a compromised phone.

Look for signs of your phone becoming unresponsive when you try to shut it down. Also, check if the backlight remains lit even after shutting down.

It could be possible that a recent phone update could be the culprit, but it is best to be sure.

Watch for Suspicious Activity

It would help if you were constantly on the lookout for any suspicious or unusual activity on your smartphone. Some common things to watch out for include:

• Phone powering on and off by itself
• Cell Phone opening apps by itself
• Phone trying to install apps by itself

But these aren’t the only things you need to watch out for. Be wary of any suspicious text messages you receive. You may receive one from an unknown sender with a series of numbers or alphabets.

This is a very big sign that someone attempted or is still attempting to tap your smartphone. Many tapping or spying apps receive instructions via text messages like this.

Another thing to watch out for is weird ads or popups constantly appearing on your phone. They could point towards malware or spyware on your phone.

Strange performance issues are another giveaway to be on the lookout for.

Listen for Interference

You normally do experience interference when you use phones around electronic devices. Your TV, laptop or microwave could interfere with your phones cellular signals.

However, this should not happen when you’re not on a phone call. If your phone is on but not in use, and you still experience interference, your phone may have a tap.

Here are three ways to check for interference:

• Bring your phone closer to an electronic device and listen for static, beeps or other unusual sounds.
• Keep your phone close to a TV UHF antenna and listen for interference.
• Bring your phone closer to an FM radio, set it to mono and dial to the far end. A high-pitched whine from the radio could mean a tap on your phone.

Keep an Eye on Your Bill

Monitor your phone bull if you think your phone has tapping software installed. Any spikes in text or data use could mean a tapping app is using them to transmit data on you.

Spyware uses the internet to function and will drain your cellular data. However, you may also need to check a few other things. Like if you installed a new app that consumes data.

Or if your kids took your phone outside where there was no Wi-Fi and used data instead.