Classic viruses tend to attack us particularly in the autumn-winter season. Even the strongest Viking resorts to tablets, syrups, broths, and delicacies from the home pantry. Malware, on the other hand, attacks us year-round, and the symptoms of a breach are less obvious than a cough and fever. So, how can you check if your smartphone has fallen victim to malware and how to remove a virus from your phone? How to play it safe? Grab your oar, because it's going to be a bumpy ride 🚣♂️!
How to Recognize Malware?
The presence of malware on your phone won't manifest as your own smartphone making fun of you every time you try to use it, playing pranks, calling your exes in the middle of the night, or firing back witty remarks. It won't cough or sneeze either, and if it does, it won't be due to a virus, but rather you'll have accidentally stumbled upon TikTok videos of a sniffly influencer. An infected phone isn't like a zombie or a vampire, so stabbing it with a stake, sprinkling it with salt, and burying it in the garden won't help. You'll find out that someone has introduced a virus by recognizing a few symptoms.
How to detect a virus on your phone? You might encounter the following symptoms:
- Slow operating system performance,
- Slow internet speed,
- Unexplained, random logouts from applications,
- Equally inexplicable smartphone restarts.
If you've noticed one of these symptoms, don't wait. Let's move on to how to remove a virus from your phone!
How to Remove a Virus from Your Phone?
To remove a virus from your phone, you first need to send all suspicious applications and files that have been causing problems since they appeared on your smartphone to their eternal rest. The next step will be to download an antivirus program onto your phone.
Good antivirus options for phones include Avira Security Antivirus, Avast Antivirus, or Biodefender Antivirus. These applications are available for download from trusted sources. After downloading and updating the program, be sure to scan your device and get rid of flagged files ⛳. While the basic functions and scanning of these apps are free, consider investing in their paid versions as a sensible form of insurance. A phone breach or virus infection can have dire financial or reputational consequences.
Crucially, at the end of the entire cleaning operation, you should change all passwords used for logging into your mobile device. Regularly changing them is an important element of prevention and avoiding potential damages that could arise from unauthorized access to your phone.
How to Secure Your Phone Against Breaches?
Changing your password is one thing, but instead of risking the need to remove malware, it's better to play it safe and prevent the virus from getting onto your phone in the first place. How to do that?
Firstly, avoid open and unknown Wi-Fi networks, which make it easier to hack into your phone. Secondly, try to install only apps available on Google Play or the App Store. While viruses can still be present in programs on these platforms, let's say this initial filtering can be further verified by reading app reviews and terms of service – for example, what permissions an app requests.
Be wary of any emails or SMS messages from unknown sources that encourage you to click a link or download a strange attachment. These scams can look deceptively like real messages, and their authors prey on your strong emotions. They might say a courier has lost your package, and since you order everything and a lot, you'll be sweating with fear that your prepaid winter tire won't reach you. You click in terror and you're sunk... You've opened the gates of Helheim...
What to Do When the Exorcisms Don't Help?
Sometimes, malware and viruses can resist even the most sophisticated antivirus applications, and even paid antivirus programs falter. It also happens that the phone simply turns off constantly, making cleaning actions impossible. Does this mean the phone is only good for microwaving?
Yes. Curtain.
Hehe – no, of course not. Don't do that. But seriously, don't.
There's always the nuclear option of formatting your phone – just like with computers and restoring factory settings. This will certainly result in your smartphone returning to its youthful days, when it turned on quickly and rang at your every command. The only potential problem might be lost data, but in this case, it's easy to protect yourself in advance by creating backups in the cloud ☁️.
How to Secure Data from Your Phone?
You now know what to pay attention to with your phone's security and the data stored on it in mind. But what if, despite your best efforts, you've become a victim of infection? Don't furl your sails and be wise before the damage is done – use one of the many cloud solutions to store data backups. iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and others. Many of the available solutions offer basic packages for free, and while they are usually limited to 1 or 2 GB of data, it's better than nothing. 😉 Monthly subscriptions for basic packages aren't prohibitively expensive, so if you have things on your phone that are particularly important to you, then we strongly recommend – analyze cloud solutions for smartphones, which will save you a lot of nerves 👌.
And since we're talking about subscriptions – have you seen our mobile number subscription offer?
