Signs Your Phone Is Infected
Unexplained Fees on Your Bill
Take a look at your phone bill or credit card statements and make sure you can account for every charge. If not, there is a chance you may be the victim of a scam that adds unwanted services to your phone and charges to your phone bill, also known as cramming. Wireless carriers have been accused of looking the other way in some cases in order to pocket a percentage of the monthly rate, so the onus is on you to be diligent and catch any bogus charges.
Your Battery Drains Faster Than Expected
While batteries do degrade naturally over time, you shouldn’t see a sudden shift in battery life with normal wear and tear. Malware may be hijacking your phone’s components in order to perform background tasks, resulting in the battery needing a recharge faster than expected.
Your Phone Is Overheating
Under normal circumstances, your phone should never be hot to the touch, but certain malware can overwork the internal CPU or charging mechanism. If your phone is overheating, we recommend unplugging it from any power sources and turning it off. Left unattended, a hot phone can cause fires and even explode.
Pop-Up Ads That Won’t Go Away
If you’re suddenly seeing a lot of ads in a specific app or even when no apps are open, you may be infected with adware. These annoying pop-ups can generate money from ad clicks, try to infect you with worse malware, or link to scam offers. Whatever you do, don’t click!
Dropped Calls and Poor Connections
If your phone has been infected with malware, an outgoing connection to a foreign server can interfere in your phone’s ability to maintain a stable Wi-Fi or cellular connection, resulting in poor connection quality and frequent dropped calls. If other devices on the same Wi-Fi connection are working properly, and those in your household are not experiencing dropped calls, malware may be the culprit on your phone.
Your Phone Is Slower Than Normal
Just like a computer, your smartphone contains a processor that is used to perform certain computational tasks. If your device has been hijacked, the malware may be overworking the components inside your phone and causing simple tasks to take longer than they should. If your phone is suffering from a sudden slowdown, and even crashing, malware could be the reason.