"Can Your Mobile Phone Get a Virus? Yes – And You'll Have To Look Carefully To See the Signs"
Smartphones have become an increasingly attractive target for hackers as their use and the dependence on them continue to grow. Nearly 84 percent of the world's population now owns a smartphone, and there were 3.5 million detected malicious attacks on mobile users in 2021. Over one-fifth of mobile devices have encountered malware and four in ten mobile phones worldwide are vulnerable to cyberattacks. Just like personal computers, phones can get infected with malware. For example, ten million Android devices were infected with the Hummingbad virus in 2016, putting about 85 million devices at risk. A phone virus typically works the same as a computer virus as it involves infecting a device, replicating itself, and spreading to other devices via automated messages to others in a victim's contact list or auto-forwarding as an email. Malware can disrupt a phone's functionality, transmit personal information to hackers, send malware-linked spam messages to contacts, capture keyboard inputs, and more. In Australia, there were 16,000 reports of the Flubot virus over eight weeks in 2021. The Flubot virus sent text messages to Android and iPhone users with links that led to a malicious app being downloaded, which gave scammers access to victims' personal information. Although Apple devices are generally considered more secure than Android devices, and are less vulnerable to virus attacks, iPhone users who jailbreak or modify their phone could open themselves up to attacks. Android users who install apps from third-party app stores increase their risk of installing malware. All phone users should watch out for signs of malware infection, which include poor performance, random crashes, excessive battery drain, increased mobile data consumption, unexplained billing charges, unusual pop-ups, and unexpected device overheating. This article continues to discuss notable phone viruses, differences in security between Apple and Android devices, signs for infection on a mobile device, how phone users could prevent further damage by a virus, and how to protect phones from malware infection.