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My mobile has been hacked, what should I do now?

Smartphones are one of the main targets of cybercriminals. We continually receive reports that dozens of malicious apps have been sneaked into Google Play to infect Android devices, and also that many malicious apps can be installed through the Apple App Store. The main recommendation that you should follow is that you always have to install the applications from the official stores, however, on many occasions we can also endanger our terminal if we do not carefully check the permissions. Today at RedesZone we are going to explain what you should do if your mobile has been hacked with a malicious app, or if you have a banking Trojan in your terminal.

Steps you must do as soon as possible

If you have detected that your mobile has been hacked, these are the first steps you should take as soon as possible, to avoid the theft of private information:

  • Disconnect it from the Internet as soon as possible. To do this, deactivate the WiFi of your mobile terminal, or directly turn off your home router so that it cannot connect. You must also remove the SIM card from the terminal, to prevent it from connecting to the Internet through mobile data.
  • Extract the micro SD card from the terminalif it has this type of storage and you have data on the card.
  • Connect the smartphone to a PC that has an antivirus and is activated. You must make a complete backup of all the photos, music and WhatsApp folder if you want to save it locally, although you also have the corresponding backup in the cloud. Of course, scan all the files that you are going to copy, in case it has any type of malware that also affects the terminal.

While you’re backing up of your terminal, presumably all your passwords could have been compromised, as well as the Google account linked to the terminal. To protect your different digital identities, follow these recommendations (in order):

  • Change your Google account password as soon as possible (Gmail). Force sign out of all locations except the one you are currently in (on your computer). In this way, if cybercriminals are inside your account, you can “kick them out” by not knowing the new password.
  • Now that you maintain control of your Google account, enter the different bank accounts and change the access password, as you could have been infected by a banking Trojan. It is very important that you change the passwords of the bank, if you cannot enter to change the passwords, then call the bank directly so that they force a reset of all the passwords.
  • Now that you have both the Google account and the bank accounts safe, you will have to go changing all the passwords of the different services that you had in your mobile terminal. Through Google Chrome, you will be able to see all the services where we have the password remembered, starting with the most important for you and ending with the least important.

Avoid theft with Mimikatz

Once the backup of all your information has finished, you will now have to recover your terminal. Although there are antiviruses for smartphones that could erase malware from the terminal, our recommendation is that you carry out a hard reset to device, that is, a complete restoration of your terminal to factory settings. In this way, you make sure that the malware is not in the terminal. Thanks to the backup of all your photos, music and important information, you will be able to restore it easily and without problems.

Recommendations so that it does not happen again

So that the same thing does not happen to you again, here are a series of basic security recommendations:

  • Only install apps from official stores.
  • Monitor the permissions of downloaded applications, if they have too many permissions you should not trust it. Also check people’s comments.
  • Do not click on strange links that are sent to you by WhatsApp or social networks, even if they are from your contacts, because they could also have been infected.
  • Install an antivirus on your terminal, to add an additional layer of security that is responsible for “stopping” the vast majority of attacks.

As you can see, with these recommendations you will be quite protected from the main threats.

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