It doesn’t matter if you have an Android or iPhone, all phones are vulnerable to cybercriminals looking to steal your personal information, especially the passwords of your banking applications. Some hackers even manage to gain access to your smartphone’s camera and microphone, meaning victims never realize they are being spied on. How do they get access?
According to Computer Hoy, a specialized technology portal, hackers use various mechanisms to infect user devices. The most common is to get them to download a malicious file, either through a link (sent by email, WhatsApp, etc.) or by pretending to be an app that is usually outside of the Play Store.
Although the Play Store is not the most secure store out there, as it deletes infected apps from time to time, most of its apps have passed Google’s security filters. This does not happen when you download software from unreliable pages, in addition to malware, many of them usually ask for unnecessary permissions, such as access to location, camera, microphone, etc.
How to know if they are spying on you through the cell phone camera?
According to the publication, there are four signs that will allow you to easily detect if someone is using your camera without permission. The first is to notice strange behavior in this component. For example, the app opens by itself or the LED light (located on the screen) starts flashing or turns on even though you are not taking a photo or recording a video.
A slow operating system is also a sign that your smartphone is infected with some malware. If your device was running smoothly and overnight its performance dropped considerably, then you are most likely a victim of spyware that is consuming your computer’s resources in the background.
Does the battery no longer last as before? The reduction of autonomy is something quite common in Android and iPhone, since the battery degrades over the years. However, malicious applications not only consume operating system resources, they also affect the power level. If you notice that there is a sudden drop, you could have malware without knowing it.
Finally, the appearance of strange applications that you never installed is another indicator that your smartphone has a virus. In these cases, the ideal is to restore the device to factory mode, since this will format the equipment. Before doing so, try to make a backup of your information, such as photos, videos, music, among other files.
How to know which apps have access to your camera or microphone?
- Enter the setting from the phone and search privacy.
- Click the permission manager option.
- Enter to camera either microphone and you will see all the applications that have access.
- If there is a strange one (or that you consider should not have that permission) click on it and choose deny.
Source-larepublica.pe