You have noticed some anomalous behavior on your smartphone: which is why you are wondering if the device is under someone’s control. However, you are not exactly a technology expert and therefore do not know where to start to carry out the necessary checks. Simply put, you might need some help figuring out how to take a hacker out of your cell phone .
Before doing anything else, however, you would like to try to understand if your device could actually be under control by someone or, more simply, you are experiencing unexpected errors, slowdowns, etc. deriving from the software you usually use.
I understand your doubts and wishes in this regard, which is why I am ready to help you, going into detail here on the main typical cases that can lead to anomalous situations on a mobile device. All that remains for me to do is wish you a good read and good luck for everything
How to remove a hacker from mobile: Android
If you use an Android smartphone and are trying to figure out how to eliminate a hacker from your mobile iphone , here are some tips that may be useful to you.
Check for “suspicious” apps
The first thing I advise you to do if you doubt that your Android smartphone is under control is to check the list of installed apps .
In fact, you must know that there are some apps designed for parental control or to act as an anti- theft device that can potentially be exploited by the bad guys in order to steal information and take control of a smartphone remotely. Among the best known apps of this kind, I can mention Qustodio and Norton Family Parental Control , just to give you some concrete examples. However, you may generally find “suspicious” apps that you have not installed or apps that are disguised to, precisely, not arouse suspicion.
In short, also taking into account the apps you have recently installed (think about it: did the problems start after installing a certain app? In that case, it could be the latter), you can go to the Android Settings , using the appropriate gear icon , then reaching the path Apps > Show all apps . Clearly the rumors could change, since there are so many different versions of Android, but you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding the list of installed apps .
Once you have reached the latter, all you have to do is check for the presence of “suspicious” apps , perhaps by doing a search on Google whenever you come across a name that you don’t know well (in some cases, it could also be normal system apps, therefore a search on the Web can dispel your doubts, making you understand if it is actually something malicious or not). In case something is actually wrong, you may want to uninstall the app involved , following the classic procedure that I also indicated in my tutorial on how to uninstall apps on Android .
In any case, it must be said that in certain cases there may be problems relating to the browser , i.e. the app you use to browse the web (for example, Google Chrome ). In this case, if you continue to receive strange notifications or something else, you may be able to solve the problem by deleting all browsing data (of course, make sure you remember all the passwords of the profiles you usually access without typing anything, since it will , in other words, reset the browser session).
In any case, to proceed from Google Chrome , you can press the three dots icon at the top right, then tap on the History item , as well as then pressing on the Clear browsing data option . At this point, go to the Advanced tab , select From the beginning as Time range , make sure that all the boxes below are checked and press the Clear data button, waiting for the system to complete the operation (this may take some time). By doing so, annoying notifications related to the browser usually disappear. For the rest, you might want to consult my guides on how to disable Chrome notifications and how to delete cookies .
For the rest, it must also be said that some spy apps leave traces on your device. In other words, you can potentially be able to detect some menus related to the latter, thus discovering their presence, by typing the appropriate codes in the browser or on the screen for dialing telephone numbers . Here are some tests you might want to put in place.
- Start the phone dialer (that is, the manual dialing screen) and enter the code *12345 : in this way, you should have access to the configuration panel of the spy app installed on your smartphone, if present. Once in the panel, manually deactivate the app and mark the name with which it identifies itself within the system, then uninstall it using the procedure you would usually use.
- If the above procedure has no effect, start the browser installed on the mobile phone and connected to the address localhost:4444 or localhost:8888 : in this way, if there is a spy-app, you should have access to the appropriate management panel .
In any case, if you do detect the presence of such an app, you may also want to search the web to understand how to best resolve the situation and remove any traces left maliciously, since of course there could be more variables at play.
Check app consumption
In the event that the verification operations for “suspicious” apps that I have indicated above have not caused you to find anything strange, you may want to investigate the consumption of the apps installed on your device. In fact, you must know that malicious apps may need a lot of battery to carry out potential espionage purposes .
You therefore understand that taking a look at the list of apps that consume the most could provide you with significant information regarding any “suspicious” apps . To take a look at energy consumption, usually on Android just go to the Settings > Battery path , then take a look at what has happened, for example, in the last 24 hours (usually there are graphs and indications relating to the apps that consume more ).
For the rest, if you encounter something abnormal, you might want to proceed with uninstalling the app involved. Also, another check you might want to check is mobile data usage , as malicious apps may need to send data to the bad guys this way. In this case, the path to follow to get more details is usually the one Settings > Network and Internet > Internet . Then just press on the gear icon , present next to the name of the telephone operator and press on the App data usage option .
In any case, if you want to go further into this type of verification , you might also be interested in taking a look at my tutorials on how to see the apps that consume the most battery and how to see the apps that consume the most data . This way, you should be able to determine if there are any “suspicious” situations . For the rest, you may also be interested in learning more about which permissions individual apps have access to , for example by going to Settings > Privacy > Privacy Dashboard and checking that there are no “suspicious” apps .
Avoid installing the unknown apps
It is usually said that one of the main sources of security problems in the Android field is related to the sideloading of apps , or the installation of the latter from sources external to the classic Play Store (which can happen, for example, through the well-known files apk ).
A general advice that I can give you in this context is therefore to download apps only from the official source of the Play Store or at most from the official digital store pre-installed on your device (which can be, for example, Huawei AppGallery on Android devices without services Google).
By doing so, you will avoid any problems relating to the installation of unsafe apps as much as possible (this also applies to app updates , which for safety should only be carried out from digital stores or, at most, from the official websites of those offering the service ).
