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Attackers are day by day finding new ways to break the security of your smartphones. The main reason is, these attackers convince the user to install the malicious apps on your smartphone. Once it is done, then all the personal information in your smartphone is at stake. So, let’s take a look at How To Remove Malware From Android.
How to know that your Android Phone is infected with Malware? It is important to know the normal behavior of your smartphone to understand its anomalous behavior in case of Malware attack.
It is obvious that your smartphone won’t be going to operate normally in case of any malware residing in it.
So, understanding anomalous behavior and drawing a conclusion from it plays an important role. In this case, we have listed a few of the things that can lead you to know that your smartphone is infected with malware.
1. Ads and Pop-ups
If you start getting multiple ads and pop-ups while using your smartphone, it is quite obvious that any malware resides on your smartphone.
These ads and pop-ups cab be bind to a certain app or can display while using other system apps as well. You can try to restrict these ads, but they are never going to stop following you.
Every time, you will get a new ad. Pop-ups are also designed very cleverly, as the hackers know how to play with the user’s brain and manipulate him to click on these pop-ups.
2. Battery life decreases repeatedly
When any malware resides in your smartphone, you won’t be able to see this malware in action. All you can sense is that the battery life of your smartphone is decreasing gradually.
Even though you are running a certain application that requires minimum battery power, yet at that time malware keeps executing in the background. Hence battery consumption is fast.
You can check the battery settings to understand this. It will display the battery consumed by all the apps since the last time the device was charged fully.
If it shows a certain app with not so proper name and description consuming maximum battery resource, then it is the malware that is installed on your smartphone.
3. Automatic Third-party apps installation
Malware is meant to execute the remote code that hacker has designed. In most cases, you will see that multiple new apps are installed on your device and you won’t even remember when you installed them on your smartphone.
This is probably the case because you never downloaded these apps, they are automatically being downloaded and installed on your smartphone because of the code execution of malware.
Hackers use such malware to install random third-party apps on your smartphone, which are mostly Spywares. In most cases, these apps go undetected by the user because of several already installed apps on the device which are seldom used by them.
4. Sudden Increase in Data Usage
When the malware is executing in your smartphone, it needs data to perform some of its tasks.
In case it is spyware then it needs the data to send the spied information to the hacker over the internet who is sitting might be 1000 miles away.
Also, these malware download add-ons for their functioning that requires data. So, it is obvious that they will be using data from your ISP.
When you start observing your daily data is running out, its probably due to the malware residing in your smartphone.
You can monitor it by navigating to the Data Usage Settings. Her you can see certain third-party application consuming most of the data. It is malware.
How to fix a hacked Android Phone
We, humans, tend to believe that cure is the best option rather than prevention. All of us know that we should secure our smartphone to prevent it from getting hacked, but little we care about it.
So once the smartphone is infected with malware, you run for the solution to fix it.
Let’s see the ways to fix a malware-infected Android Phone.
1. Using Antivirus or Antimalware Program
The best you can do is, use a trusted antivirus or antimalware program to clean out your smartphone. The reason I use the word Trusted, is because you will see several antivirus programs, that offer services free of cost.
Don’t fall for these schemes. Most of the time this free antivirus software does nothing about the security but in turn, harms your smartphone more.
There are various antivirus or antimalware programs available to choose from. We will see the two best of them here.
It is the best application when it comes to malware scanning and cleaning. It scans the smartphone to detect almost all types of malware.
Once it finds any malware and adware, it uninstalls and removes all its associated data from your smartphone. It also identifies the app that can provide potential harm to the device.
It provides a free 30-day trial and then comes with a paid, premium version. I must say, this app is worth paying.
If you are a PC user, you already know about this. It also provides services for the android platform. McAfee monitors the working of all the factors that are to be looked out for any malware existence on the smartphone.
It identifies the malware and removes it from your device to ensure security and also scans the existing apps as well as newly downloaded apps for the malware.
2. Factory Data Reset
In most of the case, the Factory Data reset is the best thing you can do for your smartphone’s safety. You will see this option in the settings menu of your smartphone.
When you reset your smartphone, it will wipe out all the data from the smartphone, this includes media on your smartphone along with the malware.
Once the smartphone is reset, you can now adopt safety measures to not let any malware affect your smartphone.
3. Changing security credentials
When a malware resides in your smartphone, it aims at stealing your personal details. It includes Important Documents, Email conversations, Call logs and the most important your Login Credentials.
So, you must set a backup mechanism to login back to your account in case if you are locked out due to a change in the credentials.
If you still have access to your account, then as soon as you clear the malware from your smartphone, you should change the credentials of your account.
Ways to Prevent Android Phone from Malware Infection
- Always download apps from legitimate sites, these include Google Play Store and other reputed app stores.
- Using a Trusted Antivirus or Antimalware software.
- Monitoring the Application Manager section on a regular basis.
- Not clicking on the pop-ups.
(Source: hackingblogs)
Enjoy!