Hacked!!!

[Rookie407]

so this is just a general message to all android users. something everyone SHOULD know about but most (non-tech) smartphone users fall short and victim to... the reason im posting this is because the wifes phone has been acting wierd lately, by wierd i mean apps have been opening up by themselves, internet browsers opened to websites that she would never go to, wallpapers keep getting changed, phone randomly being turned off, all of this happening most of the time while shes at work. now just so we know her wasnt rooted till two days ago which i did to see if maybe there was just something wrong with the stock crap that she had. turns out this wasnt the case. so i decided to post this just to make people more aware and hopefully prevent this from happening to anyone else.


what you can do to prevent this invasion


first and foremost PUT A PASSWORD ON YOUR PHONE!!! even if you have nothing to hide this will help from major things like bank accounts and passwords from emails getting stolen!

make the password hard to guess by this i dont mean use your kids names or birthdays but something no one would ever guess and use a combination of numbers and letters and never use the same password twice!

change your password atleast once a week! this will help to keep potential hackers guessing and make it harder for them to figure it out and hey if they figure it out this week they may not next week.

try to stay off of unsecured wifi networks, most routers these days have a firewall built in and if the network is protected by a password this will make it that much harder for a hacker to get into your files!

make sure you have your bluetooth set up so that other devices can only see you if they are paired or just keep it turned off when its not being used! same goes for NFC, Smart Beam, Bump, things of that nature...

dont let browsers like firefox, google chrome, e.g. save password this will also help to prevent the hacker from getting access to your email's and bank accounts! also a good idea to make sure you sign out of apps when you close them instead of leaving them open.


i hope this helps anyone else who may have had or has a problem with this from it ever happening again!

 

[ThatOneRearEnd]

Get a simple phone that does only voice calling and messages... Problem solved the easy way

 

[funkylogik]

I kinda find this hard to believe tbh. I think, for now anyway, an android device is very safe unless you let the "hacker" physically use it. If its password protected or remotely wiped then even a theif cant do that.
I honestly think people are being disproportionately alarmist when it comes to android and im not generally the na

 

[mikedt]

so this is just a general message to all android users. something everyone SHOULD know about but most (non-tech) smartphone users fall short and victim to... the reason im posting this is because the wifes phone has been acting wierd lately, by wierd i mean apps have been opening up by themselves, internet browsers opened to websites that she would never go to, wallpapers keep getting changed, phone randomly being turned off, all of this happening most of the time while shes at work. now just so we know her wasnt rooted till two days ago which i did to see if maybe there was just something wrong with the stock crap that she had. turns out this wasnt the case. so i decided to post this just to make people more aware and hopefully prevent this from happening to anyone else.

These things shouldn't happen by themselves on an Android phone, It's always something the user has installed to cause this. If a person is going to install every piece of freeware they can find without looking at permissions or reading Play Store reviews, then this will happen. e.g. free wallpaper and casual games that does pop-ups, re-directs the browser, send SMS, installs short-cuts, GPS location, access personal details and camera permissions, etc.

If they're non-techy enough to ignore simple advice, then they should really be using a simple dumb-phone. They shouldn't be allowed to use a Windows computer unsupervised either. But it happens though.

 

[divinebovine]

make the password hard to guess by this i dont mean use your kids names or birthdays but something no one would ever guess and use a combination of numbers and letters and never use the same password twice!

I've been preaching at the good-password altar for over a decade. It's hopeless.

change your password atleast once a week! this will help to keep potential hackers guessing and make it harder for them to figure it out and hey if they figure it out this week they may not next week.

That's way too much. People will have to write their passwords on little pieces of paper, much less secure than a more reasonable password age policy that allows people to memorize their passwords (especially if they use a difficult one).

dont let browsers like firefox, google chrome, e.g. save password this will also help to prevent the hacker from getting access to your email's and bank accounts! also a good idea to make sure you sign out of apps when you close them instead of leaving them open.

This is not as cut-and-dry as you think. The big example is that keylogging, shoulder-surfing, and phishing are defeated by saved passwords.

These things shouldn't happen by themselves on an Android phone, It's always something the user has installed to cause this. If a person is going to install every piece of freeware they can find without looking at permissions or reading Play Store reviews, then this will happen. e.g. free wallpaper and casual games that does pop-ups, re-directs the browser, send SMS, installs short-cuts, GPS location, access personal details and camera permissions, etc.

+1 This is most likely the cause.

HOWEVER... On this forum the Google Play store is constantly identified as the only reputable source for apps and is given an air of superiority. Everybody says you need to use Play so you don't get malware, as if you won't get malware from Play.

If they're non-techy enough to ignore simple advice, then they should really be using a simple dumb-phone. They shouldn't be allowed to use a Windows computer unsupervised either. But it happens though.

Well, that excludes 95% of the population from using any form of technology and another 4% from using any decent technology.

 

[UncleMike]

It's always advisable to follow safe computing practices - some of which you've identified. In the face of weird behavior on a non-rooted device, the rooting would not even be on my list of troubleshooting steps. If the device really has some sort of malware on it, it's because your wife allowed it to happen. Rooting just opens the device up to more potential problems. Besides that, the "stock crap" is least likely to be suddenly causing problems.

Aside from rooting, what did you do to determine that the device has been hacked, or to correct the problem? Install and run a malware scanner? Remove recently installed apps? A factory reset? Did you consider that it might be a hardware issue?

A few years ago I had a device that started acting strangely - doing things on its own, or not responding to screen touches. This started almost immediately after I was laying on the floor and rolled over the device in my belt holster and heard a muffled crack. There was no visible damage on the exterior of the device, but it WAS a hardware problem. Just this week I replaced my son's phone, which had a bad digitizer (I think) - touches in specific areas of the screen registered in nearby areas instead, mild pressure at the bottom of the screen caused touches to randomly register elsewhere on the screen, and sometimes the phone would do things on its own. As a last ditch effort we did a factory reset, which didn't help at all.

So, what HAVE you done to identify/correct the problem, and what was the end result?

 

[mikedt]

HOWEVER... On this forum the Google Play store is constantly identified as the only reputable source for apps and is given an air of superiority. Everybody says you need to use Play so you don't get malware, as if you won't get malware from Play.

Amazon are often recommended as well.

Everything a user might find on Play and Amazon should be fully documented, with permissions and user reviews. If one installs a free wallpaper or casual game or something from Play or Amazon that requires making shortcuts, browser redirects, push ads, pop-up ads, changing wallpaper,, etc, then that's what they should expect. And if they chose to ignore it, then so be it. It's down to the user to decide if the permissions are appropriate for the particular app or game, and they should read the user reviews as well. Like does that free Justin Beiber wallpaper really need access to all my personal details and passwords, full internet access, send SMSs and use my camera and GPS? - which all shown in the permissions when you click to install it. If anything truly malicious got through the system, there is a remote kill switch that Google or Amazon can use.

After all they can also install software from a multitude of untrusted sources, like The Pirate Bay, Chinese app stores, etc.

There is always the completely locked-down and approved software only approach... which basically means Apple iOS.

Well, that excludes 95% of the population from using any form of technology and another 4% from using any decent technology.

I'm always of the opinion that "Joe Public" is a moron, and will get into trouble in any way they can.

 

[ThatOneRearEnd]

If you want to be 100% sure, don't install anything...

 

[electricpete]

Thanks to OP for sharing his experience. Seems like OP and responders are in agreement about importance of being aware of safe practices.

The fact is, you don't know what you don't know. Android has a lot of security built in, compared to let's say... Windows. But Android and Windows share in common that they are platforms with lots and lots of users, meaning big reward for hackers to hack. So so you can rest assured there are lots and lots of hackers at least trying to figure out how to exploit whatever holes may exist in the many hardware/software layers of a connected Android phone. If they can break into the Pentagon, I'm pretty sure they can break into Android.

The natural result of this topic is that people will mention tips. No-one can be comprehensive, but I'll mention some that hit home for me that I perceive to be widely underappreciated.

One thing I do is scrutinize all root apps closer (poke around for info about developer, severely limit the number of root apps that I install). Since an app with root access can get to practically anything in your system, I think it has the potential to bypass any other controls you try to put on it (including permissions) if the attacker is savvy enough. Certainly it can read almost anything on the phone. Also if I have a root app that I don't use often, I revoke its root permission in the superuser app (make it ask me again the next time I launch it).

I also don't leave USB debugging enabled any longer than I have to (it gives me a scary warning when I turn it on).

 

[divinebovine]

Amazon are often recommended as well.

Everything a user might find on Play and Amazon should be fully documented, with permissions and user reviews. If one installs a free wallpaper or casual game or something from Play or Amazon that requires making shortcuts, browser redirects, push ads, pop-up ads, changing wallpaper,, etc, then that's what they should expect. And if they chose to ignore it, then so be it. It's down to the user to decide if the permissions are appropriate for the particular app or game, and they should read the user reviews as well. Like does that free Justin Beiber wallpaper really need access to all my personal details and passwords, full internet access, send SMSs and use my camera and GPS? - which all shown in the permissions when you click to install it. If anything truly malicious got through the system, there is a remote kill switch that Google or Amazon can use.

After all they can also install software from a multitude of untrusted sources, like The Pirate Bay, Chinese app stores, etc.

There is always the completely locked-down and approved software only approach... which basically means Apple iOS.



I'm always of the opinion that "Joe Public" is a moron, and will get into trouble in any way they can.

I am 100% in agreement with all of that, except the part about Amazon...if you recommend Amazon appstore, someone will soon respond with their bad experience.

Anyway, my point was that an average user, or even a savvy one, reading here would have the mistaken impression that anything on Google Play store is safe. Consider also how common it is for apps to disappear from the Play store because they were doing something wrong (probably only DMCA complaints, but it still looks like they're patrolling it); that supports the idea that what's left is safe.

When we say things like "Don't use other appstores because you are more likely to get malware, just use Play" we should make a habit of qualifying that with something like "(and be careful there too, since there's also some crud there that is bad)."

 

[funkylogik]

^^ true :beer:

 

[Rxpert83]

I am 100% in agreement with all of that, except the part about Amazon...if you recommend Amazon appstore, someone will soon respond with their bad experience.

Anyway, my point was that an average user, or even a savvy one, reading here would have the mistaken impression that anything on Google Play store is safe. Consider also how common it is for apps to disappear from the Play store because they were doing something wrong (probably only DMCA complaints, but it still looks like they're patrolling it); that supports the idea that what's left is safe.

When we say things like "Don't use other appstores because you are more likely to get malware, just use Play" we should make a habit of qualifying that with something like "(and be careful there too, since there's also some crud there that is bad)."

But Google at least regularly scans the app store for malware. That's why its recommended, because of all the options its the safest.

As with anything on a computer or smartphone, common sense is your first line of defense.

Check reviews, check permissions, check out developers, check download counts, ect.

Nobodys perfect.... Sure, malware has gotten by Google in the past, but if you do the things outlined above in addition to downloading from the play store... you're as safe as you can possibly be.