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Help Is someone remote hacking my Eris?

ACD168 said:
Mr Erisuser1, the most informative guy on these forums, Get an INC already we need you over there! haha
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+1 that goes for dooglad as well (I'd included Frisco, Caddy and Scary, but I know they have an everyday phone already) Could use your intellegence in the Inc threads. Hoto has recently joined us, come on, what are you waitin' for :cool:
 
I have had alot of strange things happen with my phone the last few months. Heating up, quick battery drain and others. On vaentines day I opened my browser to find Wikipedia had been pulled up and a valentines card front and centered in my phone. At the search bar was the typed words Valentine's Day. I had not done this and no one but me had access to my phone. I had been to a anonymous date like forum however and a post came up saying " pictures don't lie" call me. Then a few hours later another post saying " I hope you don't think I would have put that silly thing up here". This one place gets like 50 to 70 posts a day.
Things that are said it my presence or situations that are happening in my life are being brought up in this forum too in a roundabout way. I told a few people but they think my imagination is playing tricks on me or it is just coincidence. When I post at this site I started noticing that someone would say " oh, your back again" but it is anonymous so WT F! I do post there through my phone and home PC. My phone seems fine now but the other night a voice record that I had stored in it started playing and in quick succession a song came on that I had stored in another app. I hadn't touched them when i picked it up though. I mentioned this to a few and they think I am freaking out over coincidence but I don't.

Now I am worried about the home PC too. If anyone can please tell me what you think about this or who exactly might be doing it would be even better!
 
My Eris has been acting crazy this entire past week. First I had my phone on the nightstand while I was watching tv and looked over to see all of my apps jumping from one to another and then went to the market before I could even reach it to reset. The next day I had my phone off because the day before freaked me out, and it turned itself on. Then it locked me out saying I had attempted to unlock too many times when it was sitting on the table untouched. Today it keeps hanging up my calls and when I called verizon to ask what was going on, I would start typing my password to my account and numbers just started typing themselves in. I am not sure what is going on :( None of this happened when it was plugged into the charger so I have no clue what to think.
 
drm86 said:
My Eris has been acting crazy this entire past week. First I had my phone on the nightstand while I was watching tv and looked over to see all of my apps jumping from one to another and then went to the market before I could even reach it to reset. The next day I had my phone off because the day before freaked me out, and it turned itself on. Then it locked me out saying I had attempted to unlock too many times when it was sitting on the table untouched. Today it keeps hanging up my calls and when I called verizon to ask what was going on, I would start typing my password to my account and numbers just started typing themselves in. I am not sure what is going on :( None of this happened when it was plugged into the charger so I have no clue what to think.
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I guess you got the same problem bud. I am waiting for mine to get up and vaccuum the entire house for me at this point. Hoping for some babysitting services also. Awww shucks.. a girl can dream, can't she:D
 
Ok Guys and Gals,

I am having many of the same problems that are being described here. The other day, I was surfing the internet on the phone, and all of the sudden, without me touching the screen, a picture on the site was selected and the the 'picture save' menu came up, the option to set the picture as Wallpaper was selected and the picture was selected as my Wallpaper.
At the time I thought that is was just a matter of me hitting too many key strokes. My HTC EVO, however, has been completely freezing (forcing me to do a battery pull).

Now the problem has gotten worse. Today, several times when I have tried to type e-mails, or type web site addresses, I have had the on-screen keyboard randomly type out letters. I, honestly, have had to fight my on-screen keyboard just to type this message.

Personally, I think that I have somehow download some sort of virus that has allowed someone remote access to my HTC EVO Android and they are messing with me.

I may be forced to fork over $500 or so for a new Android phone because I am honestly getting sick of my keyboard typing by itself and the device freezing on me.

Please help and let me know what is going on and if there is anything I cand do to save my current device

Thanks!
 
kct1975 said:
Now the problem has gotten worse. Today, several times when I have tried to type e-mails, or type web site addresses, I have had the on-screen keyboard randomly type out letters. I, honestly, have had to fight my on-screen keyboard just to type this message.
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What you are reporting is completly consistent with a hardware problem with the touchscreen - not a software/virus/hacker issue.

If the controller for the (capacitive) touchscreen registers phantom "touches" the phone will behave exactly as if you actually touched that portion of the screen.

I'd be willing to wager that the keystrokes you see aren't really "random", but come from a certain area of the touchscreen (one corner, one edge, a vertical/horizontal strip, a spot, etc.)

If this is the case, then rotating the phone between landsape and portrait mode wouldn't
neccesarily make the problem go away - but you would probably see different "random" keystrokes ... which come from the same region of the screen.

As far as fixing the problem goes: if it is a true hardware problem, inquire with whomever you bought it from about a warranty replacement. Some other things to try - since the screen sensor is capacitive - are removal of screen protectors or enclosures to see if that changes things. (Static electricity can feasibly contribute to the problem too, and it is common to experience low humidity indoors this time of year in the N hemisphere)

eu1
 
Thank you so much for your quick response erisuser1! I sincerely hope that you are correct. I do, however have a couple of other odd events occur, though, just since I posted the last message. About an hour ago, I unlocked my phone, and went to one of my alternate home panels. As I did, I watched as it seemed that someone or something was trying to remove widgets or icons from the panels. Also, while trying to view the Lookout site, the Internet Browser kept closing on its own.

As I said, I sincerely hope that you are completely correct and that the problem clears up om its own. If not though, at least you gave me a plausible excuse for my Equipment Protection Insurance (which I pay for monthly) to cover the cost of a replacement device. Hardware problems are covered, but viruses and malware are not.

Thanks again and all additional tips and suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks.
 
kct1975 said:
Thank you so much for your quick response erisuser1! I sincerely hope that you are correct. I do, however have a couple of other odd events occur, though, just since I posted the last message. About an hour ago, I unlocked my phone, and went to one of my alternate home panels. As I did, I watched as it seemed that someone or something was trying to remove widgets or icons from the panels. Also, while trying to view the Lookout site, the Internet Browser kept closing on its own.

As I said, I sincerely hope that you are completely correct and that the problem clears up om its own. If not though, at least you gave me a plausible excuse for my Equipment Protection Insurance (which I pay for monthly) to cover the cost of a replacement device. Hardware problems are covered, but viruses and malware are not.

Thanks again and all additional tips and suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks.
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Try removing the app "Lookout" (I assume that you have it installed based on the fact that you tried to go to the website.) Perhaps it is trying to prevent something bad from happening but is, instead, acting aggressively.
 
Thanks for your reply doogald. I do not, however, believe that Lookout is the problem. At the moment, my Android is working fine (typing this at 6:54 PM EST). So belief is the problem is either as erisuser1 suggested that the problems are hardware related or my device has been hacked and is allowing someone to remotely mess with my device, when they are using their computer and or software.

My one remaining question is...Has anyone heard of any virus, malware, or hack that allows a person to gain remote access to an Android phone and remotely type on their on-screen keyboard, and allows the to open and close app remotely. Also does anyone know the reason that my Android device has frozen on me several times. Each time my device freezes up on an app, my only option is to do a battery-pull, which I know is not a great thing to do with an Android (being a Blackberry admin at work I did batter-pull procedures regularly).

Again, thanks to everyone for their quick responses, and their suggestion. I have actually e-mailed my issue to Lookout and was only told that I had not provided enough information and needed to contact my service provider. Honestly, you all have been a lot more helpful.

As for my plans, I'll give it a day to see if the issues clear-up if it happens to be just static electricity do the home heat running. If I have problems again, I may also take my HTC EVO 4G to a local Sprint store with a repair center and have the look at to see if the problem is some sort of hardware problem.

Thanks again, and any further comments or tips are welcome!
 
One of Lookout's features is to protect your from malware. As far as I know, there is little Android malware, and almost all of it is meant to steal private data rather than try to take control of your phone.

If you have installed only market apps on the phone, I highly, highly doubt that the problem is due to malware. There have been malware apps found on the market, as I noted, but Google has pulled them, so they would have been uninstalled from your phone.

For the most part I would think that the app sandboxing in Android on a stock, unrooted phone would prevent any sort of malware that would take control of your phone like that. Perhaps I am wrong about that, though.

This is an HTC Droid Eris forum, for the handset released by Verizon Wireless in November 2009. You may want to ask around on the Evo forum just to see if anybody else has had this problem with your phone.

The other option to rule out hardware being the issue is to factory reset the phone and reinstall from scratch. If the phone continues to have those issues with no third party apps installed after a factory reset - it sounds like hardware. If the issues go away, it sounds like an application issue.

At that point you can reinstall apps one or two at a time - one each day - to try to find the one that is acting up. Not many people have patience for something like that, though, nor any desire to reinstall apps and data from scratch.
 
Sorry about double-posting, and I hope I do not get banned.

Just another technical oddity that I thought about.

While I was having the problems I described in the previous posts, I tried turning off the WiFi on my Android phone, and it seemed that with my WiFi turned off, that my on-screen keyboard stopped acting strange and app stopped opening and closing. Just a thought, I am wondering if my problems are related to my Android phone bring Hijacked and Remotely Controlled, could it be a hack that is allowing a Middle Man attack on my Android Phone ? I should note that I have been using my Home WiFi network.

Any thoughts on that aspect would be much appreciated!
 
Thanks for the quick response doogald, and I apologize I posted to the wrong thread. I was just desperate to find some info about the problem that I was having, and this is the first thread that poped-up in my search on this site. Honestly, I trust all of you more than all other sites.

Anyways, I will take your advise and search for info on HTC devices. Also, while I am not thrilled about the idea of wiping my phone and doing a Factory Reset, I am glad to know that it might solve my problem if all else fails instead of having to fork over $500 to replace my device.

Thanks again!
 
This was closest thread I could find. The other day I got a text message from a number I didn't recognized - it had a link in it - I clicked on the link accidentally and next thing I know my contacts in my msn email are getting spam. I have changed my password 3 times now and deleted the account off of my cell phone. So I am sure I have been hacked that way. But what I am not sure about is how the hell to do I get it off my phone? Should I do a factory reset and if I do will I have to put all of my info back in again? I assume yes. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have a Droid Incredible running Android 2.3.4

Thanks in advance!
 
I went ahead and cleaned my phone back to factory reset, not just once but twice, then went out and purchased a new phone. I KNOW mine was hacked, have no doubts about it anymore. didn't like having to clear out my phone but I couldn't deal with it anymore. A clock kept popping up on the last one for a few days and then it appeared and stayed on my home screen. I didn't put it there so WTF. anyways all is good now. Thanks guys
 
eriely said:
I went ahead and cleaned my phone back to factory reset, not just once but twice, then went out and purchased a new phone. I KNOW mine was hacked, have no doubts about it anymore. didn't like having to clear out my phone but I couldn't deal with it anymore. A clock kept popping up on the last one for a few days and then it appeared and stayed on my home screen. I didn't put it there so WTF. anyways all is good now. Thanks guys
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Just FYI...you may be right, but it actually sounds to me like you downloaded a bad app or hs e some sort of virus.
 
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