How do cyber criminals hack your mobile phone

If I tell you that all of our mobile phones have been hacked multiple times then it is not a joke at all. Nowadays we are unable to live without mobile phone even for an hour. Due to COVID, we work from home, schools are conducting online classes, and management professionals do all their work using their smart phones. Housewives are spending their time on social media websites, students are also active on social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. even banking is also mobile banking nowadays. In such a situation we need to secure our mobile phone from cyber criminals.

Now the question arises how we secure our mobile phone but before that we have to understand that how do we know that our mobile phone has been hacked. And before that we should know that cause of phone hacking.

If you phone shows any suspicious behavior or performs unwanted actions, or its performance is slow or you are getting large number of messages from unknown numbers all of sudden, in that case, there are chances that your phone has been hacked.

Lets understand about some causes of phone hacking. Cyber criminals can hack the smart phone using various innovative techniques, but few of the common techniques may be-

• You unknowingly or knowingly clicked on weblinks mentioned on some social media websites that redirects you to a malicious website. That particular malicious website can install malware in your phone.
• May be you have clicked on any malicious weblink which you received in your email or you received via sms. On mouse click event, malware can get installed in your phone. Since this COVID pandemic started phishing attacks have increased many folds. Hackers use official looking email id to trap an individual. Hackers can even turn your device camera to monitor or spy on you.
• Your phone can be hacked in case you install any app from any unknown source or without verifying it. Sometimes one useful app may be bundled with a malicious app internally. You may assume that you downloaded some good app but you may download a malicious app in your phone for free.
• Once you sign in into malicious apps they ask for your permission to access your device camera, photographs, videos, messages, contact list, send messages to your contacts on your behalf, stored login credentials which you use to access many websites such as banking website. These apps even may install some malware to monitor your phone data and activities etc.
• Phone can be hacked using SIM card also. Hackers or cyber criminals are very smart in convincing the people to replace their SIM card by luring them. They may say that you will get Rs5000/- calling time free if you convert your 4G SIM to 5G etc. Hackers may approach you with variety of tricks.
• By connecting your own WI-FI connection or Bluetooth, hackers can connect to your phone.
• Phones can be hacked using phone charger port or data cable. Phone charging cable establishes a data connection via USB. This type of attack is called as juice jacking wherein data is stolen using phone charger’s data cable, moreover hackers can install malwares to monitor your phone. While traveling avoid free WI-FI stations to charge your phones.

After hacking your phone, cyber criminals’ next step is exploitation of the information stored in your phone. It can be your contact list, messages, photographs, videos, stored banking information such as credit or debit card details, stored various websites user credentials, which you use to access those websites.