How Do You Know if Your Smartphone Is Infected With a Virus and How to Eliminate It?

Our operating systems are generally safe, but ... the threat is never far away. Our smartphones were born to be connected to the outside world. This is their main advantage, but also their main source of danger. If 99% of Android users have nothing to worry about, sometimes something goes wrong. So here's how to detect it.

No operating system is completely virus-proof, as long as we are told otherwise. But that doesn't mean they aren't sure. The majority of malware and viruses take advantage of vulnerabilities in older versions of the system or older smartphones or catch us by surprise to obtain the necessary permissions.

Even Apple devices are not spared. A few years ago, when the manufacturer's market share did not exceed 20% of the global smartphone fleet, no cyber-criminal bothered to develop viruses for these devices. But the situation has changed, and Apple devices are no longer immune.

With around 80% market share of smartphones sold worldwide, Android is clearly at the centre of the attacks, with device fragmentation remaining a big problem. Fortunately, Google keeps releasing security updates to protect users, and Android remains a perfectly safe world as long as it avoids risky practices. The best way to protect yourself from threats is to make sure your smartphone is always up to date (the same rule applies to any device potentially susceptible to viruses).

Should you install an antivirus on Android?

How to know if your smartphone is infected

Symptoms can be varied. In fact, if you have a good virus, you won't even know you have it. The majority of existing malware will attempt to flood you with advertisements. If you see heaps of ads that you don't know the origin of, a virus may be at work.

Four symptoms can indicate the presence of a virus:

Ads in the notification bar. Some normal applications can also make them appear, which is why the malware often takes advantage of this to avoid arousing suspicion.

Redirects. If you are visiting a web page and suddenly are redirected to an advertisement page, a virus may be at work.

Excessive use of mobile data. If you see that your user data volume is exploding, keep an eye out!

Excessive use of the battery. If you see that your range has suddenly dropped, it could be a virus.

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What types of viruses or malware can infect us?

The human race is characterized by its limitless imagination. Criminals are always finding new ways to take advantage of vulnerabilities in our systems, and there are many types of infections that can harm us.

Adware: The typical, annoying, but not very dangerous advertising infection.

Spyware: it steals information from your device. It usually goes unnoticed and does not affect the normal operation of your phone, but steals your passwords.

Scareware: These are messages intended to scare us by saying that our mobile is infected with a virus. Their goal is to make us download a program to spread the infection.

Ransomware: They sound like police warnings, and are quite nasty since they can cripple your device. To suppress them, they demand the payment of a quantity of money. But paying the ransom usually has no effect and does not make the infection go away.

Trojan: It is malware that enters the device without arousing doubts, to serve as a gateway for other malware.

Worm: It can copy itself to other devices, such as infected e-mails.

How to fight viruses and malware

1. Prevent

Prevention is always better than cure. As we said above, having a regularly updated device is the best protection.

The first measure to avoid worries is to have software that is always up to date, this is true for the smartphone system but also for the applications.

2. Watch out for pop-ups

It is important to always be vigilant when browsing the internet, or when connecting to public or open WiFi networks. You've probably already received threatening notices while browsing: it must have been an attempt to install malware.

The page visited does not have to be a shady page: infections often affect reliable and highly visited sites. Be careful with pop-ups!

3. Antivirus

Most often, viruses are already known by antivirus. If you install one, it will be able to detect the majority of threats and neutralize them.

4 Backup and restore factory values

If you cannot eliminate the malware with an antivirus, you can still attack the problem at the root. Make a backup copy of your data, and restore the mobile to its factory values.

Have you ever caught a virus on your mobile? What did you do to get rid of it?