What is spyware and how to know if there is one on the cell phone

Talking about cybersecurity involves understanding certain terms that help to understand threat levels and how to act against them; one of the most relevant isspyware, a recurring type of attack that criminals use to steal information.

The path they usually choose to reach cell phones is through malicious applications or links from which a program is installed that has access to phone data, such as contacts, photos, calls or messages.

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This term means spyware, which means in a simple way, a hidden means of obtaining information; Because of this, its content is malicious and works without user consent.

The arrival of the program on the mobile phone is done by deception, either because it is hidden in software that is not dangerous, or because it is installed promising other contents or services.

Additionally, there are three types of spyware depending on their risk level and purpose:

– Keyloggers: it records user keystrokes on their device and can steal passwords.

– Adware: It constantly generates publicity. Apart from being annoying, it asks user to enter and provide personal information on such promoted sites.

– Information thieves: collects and sends information stored on the device, mainly searches for media content, search history, passwords and email accounts.

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Being software that hides from the system, detecting them can be a complicated task, so you have to resort to different signals that the mobile gives when it is attacked:

– When spyware is installed on the mobile phone, it causes the temperature of the device to rise, as it requires more work from the internal components. So, if the phone heats up for no reason and it happens after downloading an application or accessing a page, it will be important to do a security check.

– Poor performance is another important sign. This type of malware affects the normal functioning of the computer, slows it down or causes many consecutive errors, for example, applications crashing or the battery draining faster.

– If many pop-ups are opening when accessing the Internet or launching applications, there is an attack in the background that tries to display advertisements and obtain informations.

– Spyware is capable of taking control of certain functions such as mail and messages. If a contact informs us that we are sending them fake links or spam, there is surely malware behind it.

– Unauthorized purchases are usually a recurring sign, as criminals manage to obtain card and bank account numbers to perform transactions without the user’s knowledge.

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Now that we are talking about cybersecurity, it is important that users of Outlook Be aware that in recent days, a platform failure resulted in spam not being sent to this folder, but rather to the main bin.

Through Twitter y Reddit people shared this situation which was presented in several accounts of United States, Europe and some of Latin America. Even if Microsoft Make sure it is already resolved.

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However, since BipComputerr assures that “some reports have seen a lot of spam in the inbox since November 2021”, so this would not be a new situation on the platform.

Many of the emails that pass through the spam filter are deceptive messages that promote contests and fake offers, or contain fraudulent links that seek to steal information from users.