Here’s What To Do If You Fall Victim To Phone Hacking

With phones now central to day-to-day life, falling victim to phone hacking can have significant effects. Access to apps and accounts can be blocked, your work and personal contacts scammed and your bank accounts emptied of cash. Phone hacking can also lead to serious psychological effects on the victim, with people often blaming themselves, and reporting increased anxiety, depression and feelings of helplessness and lack of trust. But what do you do if it happens to you? Here’s a look at the steps you can take to recover from phone hacking and avoid it happening again - and get your life back on track.

What Is Hacking?

Hacking, put simply, is the act of accessing a victim's device through one of a number of different techniques, usually with the aim of stealing data that can be used for criminal purposes. Phones are a particularly popular target, as they tend to have access to large amounts of personal data. It can happen to anybody, from ordinary phone users to political figures.

Hackers carry out their attacks through a number of different methods. Frequently, victims are tricked into clicking on a malicious link or downloading software from a fake app store, while, in other cases, users inadvertently access a fake public wifi network. Once the hacker has gained access, they can install a keylogger to monitor activity and view login data for websites and apps — potentially giving them access to bank accounts. They can also use it to commit identity theft, or to sell your personal data to other criminals on the dark web.

Is Your Phone Hacked?

Phone hackers don't always advertise their presence, but there are a number of warning signs that your phone may have been accessed by criminals. Sometimes, though, these can be subtle changes, and easy to miss.

As the phone starts to carry out unauthorized activities, you may notice the battery draining faster than usual, apps taking a long time to load and the phone overheating. Bills may also be higher than usual. Often, new apps will unexpectedly appear, as may unexpected notifications, unrequested 2FA codes or pop-ups, or you may find that your settings — for example, camera or microphone permissions — have been changed. You may receive unsolicited calls or texts that you don't recognise. More obvious signs that your phone has been hacked include suddenly finding yourself locked out of your Apple ID or Google account, or out of other online accounts.

What To Do If Your Phone Is Hacked

If you realize that your phone has been hacked, the first, and most important thing, is not to panic. In most cases, there's no point getting a new phone, although in some cases you may choose to perform a factory reset (see below).

If you've caught things early, it may be possible to recover quickly and with little ill effect by following a few simple steps:

1. Check whether your bank or e-commerce accounts have been accessed
2. Change all passwords immediately to new, strong ones
3. Delete any suspicious apps or unexpected messages, and install and run online protection software
4. If all else fails, restore your phone to its factory settings
5. Inform friends and other contacts that you've been hacked, and warn them to ignore any messages that appear to be coming from your phone
6. Take steps to secure your phone in future, including enabling two-factor authentication on all your accounts

1. Inform Banks And Other Providers

If you realize that your phone has been hacked, the first step is to attempt to limit the damage by informing banks and any other organizations that hold your financial information.

You should check with them whether your bank accounts have been accessed and whether there have been any unauthorized purchases made in your name — and keep checking over the next month or so. You may need to ask for replacement credit or debit cards. And you should also get in touch with your mobile service provider so they can put a stop to any unauthorized activity, and make your phone secure by creating a new password or PIN, or by adding other security measures such as two-factor authentication or fraud alerts.

2. Change Passwords

You'll need to change all your passwords — particularly if, like many people, you reuse passwords from one site or service to another. Banking, e-commerce and email accounts are particularly important.

These passwords should be strong — in other words, reasonably long, unique and hard to guess. Don't even think about using your pet's name or your child's date of birth. Changing passwords may or may not be straightforward, depending on exactly what the hackers have been able to access and change, and it may be necessary to contact these organizations directly to explain the situation and ask them for help.

3. Delete Any Suspicious Apps Or Unexpected Messages

If you've found any suspicious apps or unexpected messages, you should delete them immediately. If you can't spot anything obviously suspicious, you might want to take another look at any apps you downloaded immediately before the problems started appearing.

You should then install and run online protection software to make sure you've got rid of everything you should — and make sure it's a genuine package, as fake security software is a common method of attack. Reliable suppliers include Bitdefender, Norton, Kaspersky, AVG and McAfee, all of which make software is quick and easy to use. Once installed, set it up to perform regular scans.

4. If All Else Fails, Restore Your Phone To Factory Settings

If after this you're still having issues, you could take the nuclear option, wiping your phone and restoring it to factory settings.

This is a quick and easy process, with instructions for each type of phone readily available online from the supplier. It won't present too many problems if you've backed everything up — although if you haven't, you'll lose all data, contacts, photos and apps, making it an action of last resort. And if you are able to restore data from a back-up, make sure that it predates the intrusion, so that you're aren't inadvertently reloading malware.

5. Inform Friends And Other Contacts

Once a cyber criminal has access to your phone, they may start messaging your personal and business contacts, sending phishing emails or other scam or spam messages.

This means it's a very good idea to contact everybody you can think of in your contacts book to warn them that you've been hacked. You should tell them to ignore any messages that appear to be coming from your phone — particularly messages asking them to click on links — as otherwise they could become the scammer's next victims themselves.

6. Take Steps To Secure Your Phone In The Future

Once you've recovered from your phone being hacked, you should do everything you can to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Make sure you have security software installed, and keep it up to date.

You should make sure you install any software updates promptly, as these often contain important security updates. To be extra-sure, either use a virtual private network or avoid public wifi and public charging stations. You can even turn off wifi and Bluetooth when not in use. And in future, steer clear of third-party app stores: stick to Google Play and Apple’s App Store instead.

What To Do If Your Personal Information Is Compromised

If attackers gain access to your personal information, they can carry out identity theft, access other accounts that may use the same credentials or sell the data on the dark web.

If you've fallen vulnerable to identity theft you should contact the relevant authority — in the case of the U.S., that's the Federal Trade Commission at IdentityTheft.gov. You should also ask credit reporting agencies to place fraud alerts and a credit freeze on your accounts. There are various tools that will help you check if your personal data is out in the wild, including Aura's free Dark Web scanner or Bitdefender's monitoring service, Digital Identity Protection.

Bottom Line

It's easy to panic if you think your phone has been hacked. However, if you keep your head and follow a few simple steps, there's a good chance you can escape some of the worst effects.