What is Spy Apps How Do I Know It is Installed on My Phone

How important is your privacy and security to you? In the current era of sophisticated technology, anyone can steal your information and spy on you. We all use smartphones each and every day. It’s an undeniable fact that these devices help us with a lot of things. But, at the same time, there’s another side of the coin, which is their vulnerability. Since we all have important information on these devices, pretty much any smart person can spy on you and steal your information, invading your personal life.  Cyber attackers mostly use spy apps for this purpose. So, to be safe and secure, you need to educate yourself about what exactly a spy app is and how to find out if someone has infected your device with it.

Here’s a brief answer to what is spy apps

A spy app is basically a mobile application that is installed on a smartphone by someone without the consent of the device’s owner. The culprit here can install the app either manually or through the internet. So, if you ever download and install any suspicious application from the web, you’re hurting yourself. Furthermore, any person who accesses your phone can install this app.

What can a Spy app do?

A spy app can do a lot of things. Most of these things are dangerous in nature. The attacker can steal your sensitive information, eavesdrop on you, and similar other things. Here’s a list of what a spy app can do:

• Lock your device.
• Send call log information.
• Send SMS information.
• Record your calls and send them to the culprit.
• Transmit your location details.
• Record audio and video and transfer them to those who’re spying on you.
• Change Password/Pin of your device.
• Reset your phone and wipe out the data.

How to detect a spy app on your phone?

By now, you may have gotten pretty good understand on what is spy apps. Now, it’s time to learn how to identify them. Usually, best iPhone spy apps or spy apps for Android run in the background, which is why it’s difficult to find them. But, there are still several ways through which you can detect a spy app on your device. Here’s a look at some of them:

• Unusual Battery Draining: The batter of your phone runs out quickly when you’re using high-end applications or games. But, if the batter is getting drained pretty quickly without any heavy usage, there must be something wrong. There are probably two reasons for this phenomenon, which are either hardware malfunction or a malicious program such as a spy app running on the device. If you face this issue, immediately check out the installed apps and see if any such app is installed.

• Overheating of your device: Your mobile phone heats up during heavy usage. If you’re playing a top-end game on your device or using a large application, your phone usually heats up. But, if your phone overheats without any heavy usage, chances are that a spy app is running in the background. Spy apps operate through advanced algorithms that consume a lot of your device’s resources. So, check out the installed apps on your device if it overheats without any reason.

• Weird Background Noises: It’s usual to hear background noises while talking to someone over a voice call. But, if you don’t have any disturbances on your side and it’s the same on the other side, you need to worry. Because, if someone’s spying you through a spy app, they most probably will be eavesdropping on your voice calls as well. The strange background noises are from the culprit’s side. Most of these apps use conference call mechanism to listen to your calls.

• Strange Data Usage patterns: As an internet user, you must always be keeping an eye on your data usage. Every smartphone has an option for you, where you can check the data usage information. If you observe any strange data consumption patterns in your device, you need be on a high alert. Because, spy apps send out a lot of data through different file formats such as text, audio, and video. Try to check out the data usage section regularly.

• Malfunctioning Autocorrect: Do you use autocorrect while texting? Well, most of the people do. If you ever see your autocorrect malfunctioning, it might be due to an underlying spy app in your phone. Because, these applications use keyloggers to steal your information through your text input. So, your autocorrect starts to malfunction when a keylogger collides with it.

Final Verdict

Since you’ve learned what is spy apps and how to detect them on your phone, it’s time to follow the above-mentioned steps to ensure the safety of your privacy. Many cyber crimes are being caused through these apps, which is why you need to stay vigilant. If you find out that your device has been installed with such apps, try to uninstall them or do a factory reset of your phone.