Spyware/Malware Detection
Signs you may have malware/spyware on your phone or computer.
1. Battery is warm to the touch, when not in use.
2. Battery life has increasingly diminished.
3. Some Blackberry’s have a communication icon on right screen flashing.
4. Small pauses of audible communication while talking.
5. Light audible tones, beeps or clicks throughout conversation.
6. Flashing or flickering on display or change of brightness.
7. Some spy-ware programs require the spy to manually mute their phone,
therefore it's possible to hear them briefly when they tap in.
8. Slower internet access.
9. Suspicious 3rd parties have detailed knowledge of your private
conversations and locations (GPS).
10. You have opened a suspicious email or one from a potential spy.
(Which allows a Trojan to install spy-ware remotely).
Facts You Should Know About Cell Phone Spyware
Results of Phone and Computer Forensics
After concluding your investigation, you'll receive a thorough Forensic Report to present to police or courts as proof of that suspicious or malicious activities occurred on your device or devices. You will be supplied with a directive on what reports are available for your review and a complete list of charges for the reports will be given. Through analysis, discovery of the IP address of the person who has "hacked" your computer or phone will be determined. Armed with that information, you can petition the court for a subpoena to determine the owner of the IP address, so that they can be identified and prosecuted.
Check out these videos
Video on telephone tracking
How to tell if your phone is tapped
Signs you may have malware/spyware on your phone or computer.
1. Battery is warm to the touch, when not in use.
2. Battery life has increasingly diminished.
3. Some Blackberry’s have a communication icon on right screen flashing.
4. Small pauses of audible communication while talking.
5. Light audible tones, beeps or clicks throughout conversation.
6. Flashing or flickering on display or change of brightness.
7. Some spy-ware programs require the spy to manually mute their phone,
therefore it's possible to hear them briefly when they tap in.
8. Slower internet access.
9. Suspicious 3rd parties have detailed knowledge of your private
conversations and locations (GPS).
10. You have opened a suspicious email or one from a potential spy.
(Which allows a Trojan to install spy-ware remotely).
Facts You Should Know About Cell Phone Spyware
- The manner in which spyware is installed on a phone or computer is dependent upon the device.
- Smart phones can have spyware downloaded from websites, Blue-tooth connections, mms messages and of course a pc connection.
- There is no single spyware program that can be installed on all phones or computers since there are many different OS’s and each one must have code written for the specific OS.
- Symbian OS is the most common OS but has hundreds, if not thousands, of different versions depending on the software implemented on the device. Many spyware programs cannot work for more than a few versions, if even more than one version.
- Cell phone spyware that can be installed via Bluetooth connection claim to be able to install software remotely but as with all Bluetooth devices, it must have been paired with the targeted device first.
- It is possible for the remote installation of spyware onto a target phone but this involves “tricking” the user into downloading and installing the malware on their cell phone.
- Sending bogus mms messages with the intent to install cell phone malware is the easiest way to trick a target user. By sending messages with fake links could get the user to unknowingly download spyware programs. Most of these attacks involve making the user think the messages came from the carrier and posing as upgrades to the firmware on the phone especially through email. Some techniques use photos embedded with third party stenography hiding the spyware.
- Some cellular spyware claims that it can extract data and voice from a target phone without installing any spyware on the target phone. We are still researching a specific software with this claim but at this time we can neither confirm nor deny this possibility.
- Cell phone spyware programs collect the following information and possibly more: contact data, mms, sms, phone call history, email history, web page history, pictures, video, GPS location, file system information.
- Spyware programs can remotely become a covert third party to conversations as well as use the phone as a bug so that room audio is available whenever the bad guy chooses. The spyware can alert the bad guy when a call is made, as well as texts and emails so they can call the phone and listen in. No call history for the bad guy’s phone is saved on the phone although it will show up in the service provider’s records, so it's important to check your cell phone bill regularly.
- As far as prevention of cellular spy-ware installation is concerned, blackberry’s have the best protection by far. The security code can only be guessed a certain number of times before it completely erases all information from the phone and has no obvious “backdoor” to circumvent this issue. Other phones can be protected more or less by passwords but the password must not be too easy to guess and some phones can allow the password to be reset, which is easy to accomplish in the wrong hands.
- There is no known blanket spyware protection that will protect all cell phones available in the market today.
Results of Phone and Computer Forensics
After concluding your investigation, you'll receive a thorough Forensic Report to present to police or courts as proof of that suspicious or malicious activities occurred on your device or devices. You will be supplied with a directive on what reports are available for your review and a complete list of charges for the reports will be given. Through analysis, discovery of the IP address of the person who has "hacked" your computer or phone will be determined. Armed with that information, you can petition the court for a subpoena to determine the owner of the IP address, so that they can be identified and prosecuted.
Check out these videos
Video on telephone tracking
How to tell if your phone is tapped