You are not being paranoid and still suspect that something is odd with your mobile phone. Unfortunately it might be the case. Either it is your toxic partner or even that quite legitimate app you recently downloaded. In any case someone with something is trespassing on your privacy. Mobile spyware became the field where the lines between the right and wrong are often blurred.
Spyware presents serious threat for your privacy
You have to be acknowledged of spyware so just to make your enquiry about your privacy effective. Also cyber security specialists say that here it may be crucial to differentiate between a stalkerware and spyware. The reason lies that when someone crosses a particular border with your privacy different legal cases may be applied. In the case another notion concerning this range of software takes place.
Spyware is a software, a kind of malicious software or malware that is installed on a computing device. And it is done so without the user knowing this. It can bring enough damage to your privacy to say. Such kinds of programs steal confidential information, track internet usage data and sometimes transfer your data to data firms. Or it can be some advertisers or external users.
Whereas stalkerware is monitoring software that is used for cyberstalking purposes. The term was created when people started to broadly use commercial “spyware” to stalk their intimate partners or spouses, for example. The subject arose significant controversy in the past years as it became used by abusers and stalkers.
Signs that you have spyware on your phone
In both cases your privacy is at stake when dealing with such kinds of software. In any case to detect that some software is after your data you surely should check for the next signs on your device:
How to remove the spyware?
If you noticed something like we described above then you should definitely start the removal process. The thing about spyware that makes them hard to detect or remove is that they often disguise themselves as those legitimate programs, for example windows system files. Or they will try to reinstall themselves once you again will be connected to the network. But even so it doesn’t mean that you can get rid of it.
Apart from obviously using the specific software for such matters you can try other steps to do so, as additional precaution.
The best way to try to eradicate it by yourself is to perform the factory reset on your Android or iPhone mobile device. It will delete all data and downloaded programs and bring your mobile device to its “factory state”. Before you do so don’t forget to back up all your important data.
For iPhones, you can also perform an iOS update that will return your phone to an unjailbroken status. When it comes to Android devices, spyware removal can be effectively done in safe mode ( you can go into it by pressing the “power on” button for a few seconds that should introduce a menu that will allow you to access safe mode) or it can be the airplane mode that you can enable. Either way these modes will disconnect you from any networks and allow you to perform the safe eradication of the spyware without it reinstalling on your device again.
After you went through all steps try to perform the second scan to be sure that there`s no remains of the spyware. And at the very least make it a habit to check what every program on your device actually does.
