You don’t have to be –necessarily– neither a celebrity, nor a politician, nor a millionaire. If you think you have tapped phonethe first thing you should do is check it, and in this guide we tell you how.
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And it is that the great benefits of technology can quickly become your enemies. The ease of connecting simple speakers to your wireless network, controlling the lighting in your home or monitoring your security cameras remotely through your cell phone is a double-edged sword, not to mention banking applications.
How to know if your phone has been tapped
There are several signs, barely perceptible that we do not take into account, either due to ignorance or lack of attention and the type of life we lead. Some of them can be:
- Excessive data consumption. If your cell phone is tapped, the person who did it needs to send the information that he considers important from your device. This includes locations, passwords, emails, files and any other type of information, including in severe cases, call monitoring.
- Calls to unrecognized numbers. Reviewing the details of incoming and outgoing calls in your account statement and verifying unknown numbers could help you, it sounds a bit schizophrenic, but it happens. There are ways to “duplicate” your phone number and simply use your service, obviously, charged to your bill.
- Unknown apps installed. There are applications that are used to spy and capture information that you enter on sites or apps, such as usernames and passwords. Fortunately, it is almost impossible to hide an application on a cell phone nowadays, but it is still possible to not have it in sight, check your list of installed apps and delete any that you do not recognize.
- unusual battery drain. The use of spy applications, their updating and the generation and sending of reports throughout the day is definitely something that consumes energy because it is working in the background, that is, secretly and without you noticing. A high consumption without having used your cell phone in a day is a good indicator, along with the heating of the device without using it or for no reason.
- Noise on calls. Call monitoring, although it sounds obsolete, is a reality. Although, most likely, if this is the case, it is that you are being recorded, you may occasionally hear “noises” such as interference or even cross calls.
Another way, a little more technical, to know if your cell phone has been tapped, and if so, eliminate all possibility, is through certain codes that you mark directly as a call and tell you the status on the screen, they work for both Android and for iPhone:
##002#
By dialing this code, and in case your cell phone was tapped, it will eliminate call forwarding.
*#62#
This code will tell you to which number calls are being redirected when your cell phone is turned off or out of area. A number from your company may appear, which is normal.
*#twenty-one#
Unlike the previous one, this code also tells you textually if any service is being diverted.
What can I do if my cell phone has been tapped?
Regardless of the type of cell phone you use, follow the following tips, in any of the cases, the first thing we recommend is that you make a backup of your information that you consider important, such as contacts, notes and music. Using a password manager is also highly recommended.
- Keep the operating system up to date. Although both Apple and Android release updates, an iPhone has a great advantage in this regard. Still, try to stay up to date with the latest update regardless of your device model.
- Do not install apps outside of your app store. Whether it’s to save cost or simply because it’s not available in your store, installing an app “outside” can be very expensive. It could be the case that this app is actually a virus in disguise and you are giving it full access to your cell phone.
- Install an antivirus. While this does not guarantee 100 percent security, it will keep most hacking attempts at bay. Look for one of the best possible antivirus and do not hesitate to install it.
- Always have your cell phone in sight. There are types of interventions on your cell phone that the device physically needs. Do not leave it alone and without monitoring for a long time. Do not lend it and in case of emergency, do not lose sight of it, if possible, stay with the person who uses it.
- Use password on home screen. No matter how annoying you find it, the password is one of the safest ways to keep your phone safe. Even apps installed without authorization will need your password to stay active if they try to change security settings on your device.
- Do not root or jailbreak your phone. The advantages that doing this gives you definitely do not compare to the danger to which you expose yourself when doing this procedure on your cell phone, since you will be giving possible hackers almost total freedom to modify many security aspects, even through applications.
If even despite following all these steps to the letter, you suspect or are sure that your cell phone has been hacked, it is best to perform a factory reset, here we explain how to do it on an iPhone, for Android phones it may be a little different depending on the brand. Be very careful when doing it, remember that with this procedure you will lose all the information contained in your device.
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