Friday 25 February 2011

Has your phone being infected with cellphone spyware?

If you possess a modern smartphone you are no doubt delighted by all the new possibilities your telephone offers. Yet such power comes at a price - as smart phones become more like computers, they also become more vulnerable to computer viruses and spyware. This article will explain to you how to check that your phone has not become infected with cell phone spyware, and how to ensure that it will never happen.

If your cellphone runs any of the major smartphone technologies (android, IOS, Nokia N series, blackberry, Windows Mobile) it will be a potential target for hackers and unscrupulous people in your entourage. These smartphones can now become infected with cell phone spyware which enables a third party to spy on all the phone's activities, such as telephone conversations, SMS messages, GPS location, etc. And for the average owner, such spyware is undetectable - you will never know that someone is spying on you!

Yet there are a few signs that could tip you off to the fact that you have been bugged. An early warning signal your cellphone can give you is a sudden decrease in its battery life. If you've been using your phone for any amount of time, you should normally know by now how long the phone will last on a full battery charge. If the battery life suddenly decreases this may indicate that your cell phone is now running another app in the background (don't panic just yet however; it could also mean that you simply need to buy new battery!).

You also want to be on the lookout for any abnormal activity from your phone. By this I mean strange beeping and vibrating when there is no other activity going on. Also, if you start receiving unfathomable SMS messages and dropped telephone calls, then this could mean there is a problem.

So, you think your phone may be infected with a virus with some malware - what can you do about it? Well the simplest thing to do is use your phone's software to restore the original operating system. This should delete any cell phone spyware installed on your machine: however, it might also delete any apps and utilities you have added to your phone since you bought it. To be on the safe side, a full system restore is recommended if your phone is infected, but it will mean you'll need to be installed everything on your phone again.

Alternatively, if you have recently purchased your cell phone, you could try taking it back to the shop or sending it back to the website you bought from and see if their technician can solve the problem for you. Yet this means being separated from your new phone for some amount of time, and this is not something most of us are happy about! So I do recommend trying the full system backup first and if the problems persist, then take your cell phone to the specialist.

So we've gone over a few simple methods that could tip you off to the fact that someone is spying on your cell phone. Please bear in mind that the spyware programs are becoming more and more sophisticated every year, and if you think your cellphone is at risk you should consider purchasing cell phone anti-spyware, just as you have installed an antivirus on your PC. Remember, there are plenty of wannabe spies out there, so it's better to be safe than sorry!

1 comment:

  1. You can use a spyware detector program in order to know if you have spy on text messages software installed on your phone. It is very hard to detect this kind of spyware because they work without you knowing it.

    ReplyDelete