Cell Phone Spyware: 5 top signs saying your device is infected!

Did you notice your phone acting weird? Random switch-off, battery dies more often than usual. Among multiple reasons one might be true – someone uses a cell phone spyware on your device.

First, it’s necessary to understand how spy software works. Here are some actionable tips to identify how cell phone spyware manifests itself on the target device.

Learn What Spy Software Can Do

Spy applications operate in a stealth mode. Their icon is not visible on the home screen. Some apps recommend parents to leave the icon and inform children that they will be monitored. Or, managers when monitoring employees can leave it on the corporate phone’s home screen. Workers are usually informed that the company’s property is being supervised.

Spy software provides the following spectrum of monitoring features:

• GPS location tracking. Users can find the phone’s location and this way pinpoint the current whereabouts of its owner.
• Geo-fencing. The feature allows putting virtual perimeters around safe and dangerous areas on the app’s map.
• Internet activity monitoring. Spy apps monitor sites, social media and their messengers, bookmarks.
• Online filters. It’s about sifting through any content that comes up in front of children or other target people.
• Installed apps monitoring. They are visible to someone who uses cell phone spyware. Users can block them as well.
• Instant messengers monitoring. Spy apps track chatting via the most popular messengers. Also, they show the timestamps.
• Reminders, calendar monitoring. The service’s customers can have a look at someone’s calendar events, plans, and reminders.

Together with the question on the apps’ functionality, prospects ask whether it’s possible to spy on someone without actually taking a device in a hand.

Can someone spy on a phone without access to it?

Spyware’s concept of monitoring includes a remote access to a target device. A user goes to an online account within the service and stumbles upon the Control Panel. They can use a PC, smartphone, iPhone, etc. to access an online account. Furthermore, this could be another person’s device to log in to it. The only condition is the Internet connection.

For the record, when installing the app for the first time on an Android device, physical access is required. To install software on iPhones, there’s no need in physical access. But it’s mandatory to know another person’s credentials to iCloud. Also, if it asks two-factor authentication, then users need to take a phone just once. The further monitoring is being done remotely.

Detect the “symptoms” of spyware

When armed with the knowledge of spyware’ signs on the target device, an individual can easily identify it on theirs. Here are the four signs that will translate that someone is being spied on:

Battery drain:

The app which runs in the background is energy consuming. Usually, the battery is draining much faster than it used to in a very short period of time. After a while, owners have to change a device.

Random Data Usage:

Spyware sends a lot of data from a cell phone to the Control Panel. As a result, the phone seems to be using a lot of data. If there are weird inconveniences and apps drain too much data, spyware might be involved.

Websites acting strangely:

Your online experience changes in the overall: sudden popups and ads show up while visiting sites. Also, fraud sites appear instead of real ones. They fish for users’ personal information.

Phone being slow:

Suddenly, for no obvious reason, a device gets slower. Spy apps might make devices restart and update unpredictably. Strange apps might show up (a user did not set up) consuming the energy and using too much data.

Weird messages:

Some spy apps use SMS commands to block certain features in a device. It’s a sort of distant manipulation. When receiving such message, there are some figures there. But it’s an explicit code to block something.

Conclusion

If a user sees one or more of these sings, it means there has to be an urge to check for spyware infection. Even if it was not detected, phone’s owners will find out another source that drains the data, energy and influences negatively the device.