You’re worried. There are strange things happening lately, which you cannot explain. Your phone seems to have a mind of its own. More than likely, your phone has been hacked. How can you prevent that from happening?
First, if you suspect that your phone has been hacked, shut it down, reset to factory settings, and get someone to check that you are good to go. Hopefully, you backed up your data and phone settings to the cloud, but if not, it’s back to scratch for you, unfortunately.
We try to keep our private information private, but sometimes, often through no fault of our own, a hacker gets through. It can be a most disturbing and humbling experience, when you realise that your life is not your own anymore.
That may seem very dramatic to you, but we have seen it happen, and it isn’t a pretty place to be.
Identity theft is one area, but even minor hacking operations can cause issues in your life. When your phone heats up often, loses battery life quickly, and where you find you start receiving odd messages, your phone has been hacked more than likely.
What to do to prevent your phone from being hacked
Don’t use public Wi-Fi access when browsing or using your banking app
While you have free use of their Wi-Fi, you are opening yourself up to a whole host of problems. Cyber Thieves have sneaky ways of accessing your phone via these public networks.
Ensure your mobile phone has the latest anti-virus software installed
Most service providers or mobile suppliers offer anti-virus software, included when you purchase the phone. If yours doesn’t, or you are not sure, then look to downloading one. McAfee Mobile Security is a good application to look at.
Do a bank check daily and watch for odd transactions
Even the smallest debit off your account should be queried. All those cents added up, at the end of a year, could amount to quite a pretty packet.
Change your phones access password often and make it obscure
A real pain, we know, but it could just save you finding out your phone has been hacked.
How will you know that your phone has been hacked?
Sometimes it is not so obvious. Phones can get bugs, and can act up, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that your phone has been hacked.
Here are some tell-tale signs to look out for:
- It’s getting hot in here!
When your phone feels super-hot to the touch and/or won’t hold a charge, there may be a chance a hacker has visited. It could be also, that your battery has seen its day. Although, if you own an IOS phone, the entire phone will need to be looked at, as the Apple phones don’t have a removal battery. (but, you knew that already).
- What’s that app doing there?
With almost 11 billion apps available to us, and with quite a few of them already installed on your phone, you may not notice that extra little icon. But, I urge you to check your phone regularly. The one way that hackers are able to get stuck into your phone’s workings, is to download applications, whereby they load malicious data and files. Once they are in, they can wreak havoc, and in record time. As soon as you see an odd icon, delete it 100%, and get your phone in for a check.
- Unauthorised what?
Often times, a hacker will log into your Google, Dropbox, or other cloud saving platform. Most times, you should receive a notification via email telling you that someone has logged in. If it wasn’t you, get in their quickly, log everyone out, and reset your passwords.
