You may have heard of - and grumbled about - the term
‘planned obsolescence’. It’s the idea that consumer products are designed with
a specific lifespan in mind, and are prone to breakdown after that point, often
when they have fallen out of warranty. Companies have widely denied that they
engage in this practice, but it also seems true that the things we buy today
don’t last as long as products of the past.
When people’s phones start to grind to a halt after just a
year or two, many are quick to blame it on planned obsolescence. Yet in many
cases, there’s actually a more mundane and more sinister reason: malware. You
may not realise it, but phones are just as prone to viruses as computers, if
not more so, and they can massively slow your phone down. Here are five signs
your phone is infected with malware, and what to do if it is.
How to tell if your phone has a virus
Viruses and other malware want to make themselves hard to
spot, which is why they’re so hard to deal with. While many people continue
using their phones with no sense that anything’s amiss, however, there are
warning signs you can watch out for. Here are some common ways you can tell
whether your phone is infected with a virus:
Your phone is slower
The most obvious, telltale sign that your phone is infected
with malware is when it becomes noticeably slower over a short period of time.
The timescale is important, as phones are prone to becoming slower over time
for reasons other than malware, or conspiracy theories. As apps and websites
become more demanding, your phone will struggle more to run them, and keep them
all open at the same time.
If your phone’s performance drops fairly suddenly and
without obvious cause, however, that could be a sign of malware infection.
Malware often uses your phone’s resources for other tasks, such as monitoring
your data, displaying ads, or even mining cryptocurrency. Modern phones tend to
keep themselves optimised to run as quickly as possible, so a sudden slowdown
is often a big red flag.
The battery drains faster
Like a slowdown, poor battery life can just be a sign of a
phone’s age. Batteries degrade over time, to the point that a battery may only
last around half as long as when it was new after three or four years of heavy
use. It will also depend on what you use the phone for, with videos and games
played at high brightness consuming the most energy.
Again, however, a sudden drop in battery performance can be
a sign of malware infection. This one is easier to diagnose than slow
performance: your phone’s settings should allow you to see not only how quickly
your battery has been used up (with a handy graph), but also which apps used
the most battery. This could be a way to spot another item in our list…
Your data is disappearing
Data usage is an easy thing to miss given how much we can
use our data organically, and how much data use can vary. If you have a large
or unlimited data cap, you might not even notice gigabytes of data going
missing each day. If you already suspect your phone might be infected, though,
it’s worth checking your data usage in your phone’s network settings - and
keeping an eye on the flashing network icon to show when it’s being used.
Malware can use up your data by sending information back to
whoever created it. This might range from one-off transfers of personal
information to using your phone to complete tasks online, such as forming part
of a denial of service (DDoS) attack. This can not only use up your allowance
or cause your speeds to be throttled, but also slow down your connection and
your device, making it a troublesome and worrying issue.
You’re getting popup ads or notifications
From TV to cinemas to YouTube, we’ve all become used to a
certain number of adverts in our daily lives. One kind of adverts we should
never see is a pop-up, where the ad prevents us from doing anything on our
device. Although some similarly irritating ads exist - fullscreen ads, anyone?
- apps and websites are largely banned from (or have stopped using) pop-ups.
Malware is less scrupulous, and can make ads appear on websites where they
aren’t supposed to be.
Pop-up ads and unwanted notifications are one of the most
common signs of malware infection, and one of the easiest things for malware to
trigger. Ads generate revenue when you click on them, so malware is often
designed to make it as easy to click on ads as possible. It does this by bombarding
you with ads that are almost unclosable, at least without opening them
accidentally. These aren’t the most dangerous side-effect of malware, but they
are often the most visible - and annoying.
There are apps you don’t remember installing
Most of us probably have more apps installed than we ever
use. Some might be utilities that we will need in the future but use sparingly,
such as having Uber for when you travel to a big city. Many of them get used
once or twice before languishing for years, only getting uninstalled if we
start to run out of space. Well, lurking amongst all of these apps could be one
you never installed, and which could be a sign of malware.
Just as malware often installs itself and supporting
programs on your computer, malware on phones often installs its own apps. These
might purport to be a useful piece of software, such as a phone cleaner, or
even antivirus software. In reality, they are often just a way to get you to
hand over access permissions, and let the app use your phone for more nefarious
purposes - or simply a way to show you even more ads.
How to fix an infected phone
Many people do not realise that antimalware apps are
available for phones in the same way as computers. In many cases, these offer
real-time protection as well as letting you scan your phone for existing
threats. Apps such as BitDefender, Avast and Norton provide robust malware
scanning and protection tools, and should help to find and eliminate any
malware on your device. Most phones also include built-in protection, but this
is often less effective.
Sometimes malware can prevent you from installing apps or
taking other actions that would remove it. If you’re still struggling with
malware after using an antimalware app, try these steps:
1. Delete unwanted apps
As we’ve explained above, any unrecognised apps should be
deleted as a matter of course, as they could be harbouring malware, and simply
reinstall it when your antivirus is finished working. You should consider
deleting any apps you simply don’t use very often, though, as even seemingly
trustworthy apps could be infected or contain security flaws.
2. Clear your cache
Malicious files can sometimes hide in the temporary files
used by our web browsers, including the browsers built into social media apps
such as Facebook and Twitter. Go to each of these apps (both browsers and
social media) and use their settings to delete cached files, if possible.
If they don’t have this feature, you can go into your
phone’s app settings menu, select each app and clear its temporary files that
way. Note that either of these actions will likely delete things like cookies,
logging you out of any websites.
3. Perform a factory reset
If you can’t get rid of the malware using antivirus
software, and it keeps coming back despite deleting suspicious files, you may
be forced to do a factory reset. Backup any files you need to and which are
likely to be uninfected, such as photos. Be aware however that these may also
be infected in some cases. Ideally, you should download them to a computer and
scan them with PC antivirus software before returning them to your phone.
A factory reset can be performed on Android by going to
Settings and then General Management or About Phone. On iPhones, it can be
found by going to Settings, General, and then Transfer or Reset iPhone. While
this will delete all of your files and apps, it should definitely solve the
problem - and your account will usually remember the apps you had downloaded
previously, allowing you to quickly reinstall them.
An infected phone is extremely frustrating at best, and at
worst can put your personal information and other data at risk. By avoiding
dodgy websites or downloads, and using an antimalware app, you can hopefully
avoid getting infected in the first place - but if you do, the steps above
should help you to solve the problem.
About the author:
Sota is one of the UK’s leading independent providers of
professional IT services in Kent, including cloud computing, cyber resilience,
connectivity, and unified communications. Having worked with countless
businesses over the years, they are experts in their field, ready to advise and
offer tailored solutions for each and every company.
