Buying an iPhone for your child or yourself can be both exciting and expensive. So, the last thing you want is to have your new beautiful gadget hacked by a cyber criminal.
But how can you tell? There are definite signs that an iPhone has been hacked, so keep reading to learn what they are.
Signs of a Hacked iPhone
Constant Pop-ups
Pop-ups sometimes appear on phones that have not been hacked. However, if they are constantly appearing, then your iPhone could be infected with adware.
Slower performance
An iPhone’s resources could be over-used by malware causing certain applications to crash or the phone to freeze. Some applications may continue running even after you have tried to close them.
A Clear Decrease in Battery Life
A smartphone’s battery charge inevitably decreases over time. However, if malware has infected your iPhone, the battery charge may drop faster.
The reason is malware can use up an iPhone’s resources to transmit data over to a server used by cyber criminals.
Higher Data Usage
If the data usage at the end of the month is significantly higher than expected, malware may be running in the background and sending information to hackers.
Mysterious outgoing calls or texts
Cyber-criminals sometimes use high-rate phone numbers to charge users.
Your iPhone could be used to contact these numbers without your approval.
Strange Email and Social Media Account Activity
Once a hacker has access to your iPhone, the rest of your accounts can be accessed, including social media and email. If this happens, you are at risk of having your identity stolen, along with any ensuing financial repercussions.
Hacked or Not?
An iPhone behaving in any of these ways does necessarily mean that it has been hacked. It could mean that there are old apps that are behaving strangely because they need to be updated.
Also, an iPhone that has not had a recent deep cleaning could show these same symptoms.
However, if you have recently updated your apps and cleaned your iPhone and it continues to act in these ways, then it may be infected with malware or a virus.
To find out more, read our post Why Do You Need iPhone Antivirus Software.
A Jailbroken iPhone
If you iPhone is jailbroken, then it can do some things a regular iPhone cannot, including installing unofficial apps and modifying its settings.
However, this also means it is more susceptible to being hacked.
Ways to Fix a Hacked iPhone
- Restore the phone to factory settings
- Restore the phone from a clean backup
- Delete any apps that appear to be infected
Before doing any of these, make sure to backup any data you may need in the future.
To Recap…
If you own an iPhone, make sure to keep watch over its behavior to spot any signs of malware or viruses before its too late to protect your data and privacy from online threats.
