Other signs of your device being compromised include you or your contact receiving strange calls or strange messages, or your call and text message history include weird and unknown entries due to some types of malware attempting to make calls or send messages to premium international numbers.Īnd let us not forget one of the most obvious signs: if your Android phone has been hit by ransomware, you’ll simply be locked out of your phone.
However, says Stefanko, this is not limited just to apps – you may observe that your smartphone and its system start to act oddly as well. “The most common signs of a device being compromised are that the battery gets drained faster than usual, you experience spikes in your internet data usage although your browsing habits haven’t changed, your GPS feature or internet (either Wi-Fi or mobile data) can be enabled or disabled by itself, and random ad pop-ups or unknown apps being installed without you authorizing it,” says ESET malware researcher Lukas Stefanko.Īnother sign is that apps that previously worked just fine start to exhibit weird behavior, including suddenly starting up, closing, or failing altogether and showing unexpected errors. There are a couple of fairly telltale signs that your smartphone may have been compromised:
How to check if your phone has been compromised These apps are typically disseminated through unofficial app stores.
Once the victim clicks on it the attachment or the link (which then downloads malware to their device), that malware allows hackers to carry out their nefarious deeds.Īnother stratagem is fraudulent websites, where cybercriminals spoof the websites of popular brands or organizations – these are laced with malicious links that, once clicked, download malware onto your device.Īdditionally, it isn’t uncommon for cybercriminals to deploy fake applications that masquerade as real apps, leading unwitting victims into downloading keyloggers, ransomware, or spyware dressed up as fitness-tracking tools or cryptocurrency apps. One of the more common tactics used to compromise a victim’s device is using phishing and malspam emails that contain malicious links or attachments. With Android holding the lion’s share of the market, we’ll focus on this OS and leverage insights from ESET malware researcher Lukas Stefanko, who has a long track record of uncovering threats targeting Android users. The past few years have provided plenty of evidence that even your trusty mobile device can be compromised by malware. All of that wealth of data also attracts threat actors who want to use it for their own ends – from selling it on the dark web to using it to commit identity theft and fraud. We use them to snap pictures, send and receive emails, communicate through social media platforms, for wallets and banking apps … the list goes on.
The goal seemed to be to gather information on Yemen, Faou said.With the dawn of the Android and iOS operating systems, phones have evolved far beyond their humble call and text features – they now are portable smart devices capable of doing tasks that were previously entrusted to laptops and PCs. It was part of a larger campaign in which Candiru helped the unnamed government break into a string of websites concerned with the Middle East, ESET found. Earlier this year, researchers at Microsoft and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab cybersecurity research center found that Candiru had helped governments that paid for its services hack human rights activists around the world.įor several days last year, when some people visited Middle East Eye, which reports news and publishes opinion pieces about the Middle East, their devices were hacked if they matched a certain criteria, said Matthieu Faou, an ESET researcher. But like many cyber arms dealers, Candiru sells hacking technology to governments with little restrictions on how it can be used, according to cybersecurity researchers. Commerce Department for supplying “spyware to foreign governments that used this tool to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers.”Ĭandiru keeps an extremely low profile, and does not have a public website or contact information, and thus couldn’t be contacted for this article.
The research is a rare insight into Candiru, which was blacklisted this month by the U.S.