Here’s how to tell if your cell phone has been tapped.
1. Incessant Battery Problems
Before iOS and Android caught on, battery troubles were a sign of a phone tap. Hot batteries remain a concern when it comes to smartphones.
You are probably very familiar with an overheating battery anyway. You might have even visited a phone store and asked about the issue. In most cases, you’ll simply be told it’s standard for smartphones. Apple, for example, typically only worries if your device has got so hot, it’s shut itself down.
Why does your smartphone get so hot? Using several applications and consuming endless media would make your handset warmer, even though this should not be enough to cause any damage to you or to itself.
However, a hot battery can also be a sign of cell phone tapping. Uninvited software could be running in the background, by allowing someone else to listen in.
Monitor your phone: remember which applications you have used and how they affect your phone battery. If it regularly runs low on battery, despite you not making use of it that regularly, that should be too strange to ignore.
2. Increased Mobile Data Usage
Keeping a close eye on your phone bills can also save you a lot of cash. But it can also help you spot spyware.
Countless apps vacuum up huge amounts of data, especially if you don’t connect to free Wi-Fi offered by many stores (because this can be a security concern too). It’s even worse if you let your kids use your device while away from home. Still, you should know roughly how much data you use each month.
If this amount increases dramatically, you need to narrow down exactly why that’s happening and if you can’t find the reason, it might that a third party is intercepting your messages.
3. Unwanted Ads and Apps
You know your phone like the back of your hand which is to say, not very well. You become overly familiar with your operating system, meaning you forget half the apps on there.
But it’s imperative that you know exactly what’s on your phone, especially the apps running in the background. If you’ve not installed them, they could be malicious.
One such piece of malware that tampers with your cell is Hummer. This Trojan infected about 1.4 million Android devices per day in early 2016. First spotted in 2014, it was most prevalent in countries like India, Russia, and the Philippines.
Malware can generate a lot of ad traffic, and thus increase data usage further.
4. General Performance Issues
It’s only natural that the more data being used, the slower your device will be.
HummingBad is similar to Hummer, a Trojan with an estimated 10 million victims. It finds its way onto a device when a user accidentally downloads a fraudulent app. Fake versions of YouTube or WhatsApp, for instance, can still be found on the App Store.
The malware also gets root access, or, in some cases, tricks you into downloading a fake systems update for complete domination over your activities. It then promotes pop-up advertisements and transmits information to a server controlled by Yingmob, a group of Chinese hackers. In addition to so-called “click-fraud”, HummingBad could intercept all your messages.
You can check which apps are using the most RAM. On iOS, you just need to go on Settings > General > iPhone Storage. On Android, click Settings > Apps and swipe over to Running. You’ll probably see Photos and Music near the top of the list. From here, you can properly assess your app usage, and check for anything that doesn’t ring true.
5. Strange Texts and Messages
How do you know if your phone is tapped or being spied on? You might be ignoring the signs already!
What you might pass off as spam, a nuisance, or a wrong number can be an alert that something’s wrong.
Suspicious SMS will be a seemingly-randomized series of digits, characters, and symbols, which will immediately strike you as odd but perhaps not especially malicious.
