Smartphone tips and tricks: Everyone who has a smartphone, at one time or the other, has believed, with some logic, that their device has a virus problem. Malicious malware can be very dangerous.

Smartphone tips and tricks: Billions of smartphones are in active use across the world and with so much of business moving online, can cybercriminals be far behind? With increasing usage of smartphones, viruses have multiplied as criminals look to cheat people of their money, their date or simply offload money-making ads on them. In the bargain, users suffer loss of money, damaged phones and an aversion to going online except for basic tasks. However, it need not be so. Users can try and detect a smartphone virus that may have come onto their phones and try to delete it to ensure a better online experience. Often, it is mistakes made by users themselves that leads to a smartphone virus coming aboard and not necessarily cybercriminals injecting malicious malware, although that risk remains too.

What makes things even worse is the fact that whether you have an Android smartphone or an Apple iPhone, both are vulnerable to a degree and therefore, everyone needs to take precautions so that they do not end up with huge losses.

What is malware?

According to Cisco, “Malware is intrusive software that is designed to damage and destroy computers and computer systems. Malware is a contraction for “malicious software.” Examples of common malware includes viruses, worms, Trojan viruses, spyware, adware, and ransomware.”

Does your phone have a virus? Find out:

1. Your phone is hot to touch even though you have not been using it much. It may be a sign that someone has hijacked your phone and is using its power for their illegal work.

2. You data is getting exhausted too fast or your phone bill is rising without any change in your activity. It will also mean your battery is getting exhausted too fast.

3. Too many and quite intrusive ads appear on your phone. This may be a hint that there is hidden adware on it. They do not just serve unwanted ads, but can also infect the phone with malicious malware.

4. The contacts in your phone list are getting spam messages from your phone. The danger is that while your phone is infected already, these spam messages can infect their phones too.

How to find and delete malicious apps from your phone:

1. Are there any apps on your phone that you have not downloaded? These have probably infested with malicious malware.

2. Check which apps on your phone are consuming more data than others. If you don’t recognise them, just delete them.

3. Go through all the apps on your phone. Get rid of the ones with bad reviews on app stores or ones that you do not remember downloading and those that you do not use.

How to avoid getting a virus on your phone:

As we said earlier, many times the owners of smartphones themselves make mistakes that leads to malicious malware invading their phones. Here are things that they must never do to stay safe:

1. Never download unverified apps from unknown sources. Always go to official app stores like Google Play Store or Apple app store to download apps. Having said that, there are often many apps on app stores that actually have malicious malware in them. So, even if you go to an official app store, make sure you verify the app that you are about to download. At the mere suggestion of something wrong, you should abandon download.

2. Whenever you download an app it will ask for permissions from you on what it can do on your phone. So, be very careful about what you allow it to do. Do not give any permission that you are uncomfortable doing.

3. Just like in computers, mobile phones too need anti-virus software. So, make sure you install an anti-virus that is trustworthy and dependable.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR