Virus on phone

[GodlessCombo]

Hi, I have an older phone, a galaxy s7 and I seem to have a virus on it or something of the nature because almost all accounts I have have been tampered with and frozen or full on taken over, I've scanned it using anti virus apps, I've factory reset it a few times but it still keeps happening. I know its my phone because I haven't logged into anything on my laptop yet but its really starting to get to me :/ does anyone have any idea wtf is going on?

 

[mustang7757]

Hi , Welcome !
Can you change your passwords on your account?

 

[Mike Dee]

Not clear on what you mean by accounts taken over or frozen. Doesnt sound like a virus. When you do a factory reset are you starting with a clean install?

 

[GodlessCombo]

I mean like, someone keeps accessing my accounts, email, eBay, etc etc. It has to be the phone because I made an account on an app and only logged into it from my phone and about 2 weeks later I found an email telling me they had suspended my account due to strange actions coming from my account, also happened with my PlayStation account, I logged in on the PlayStation app through my phone and later on had someone constantly trying to make their ps4 as the main ps4 for my own account so I know something is up but I don't know what.

 

[GodlessCombo]

And yes, I believe its a clean install, I back everything up onto something before I do it and then I reset it. I select "Factory Data Reset" in settings.

 

[J Dubbs]

And yes, I believe its a clean install, I back everything up onto something before I do it and then I reset it. I select "Factory Data Reset" in settings.

What he's referring to is a clean install where you factory reset your phone and don't reinstall ANYTHING.....set the phone up as new. Then use it for a while and see if the problem returns. If it doesn't then you'll know one of your third party installed apps is to blame. If it's not an app it sounds like somebody has gotten access to your account passwords......does anyone else have access to your phone or passwords besides you?

 

[methodman89]

Don't know what you are waiting for, but log out of everything. From a secure pc, change your Google password first and enable 2fa. Go to all those other accounts and as suggested above, change all your passwords. To be extra safe, since you believe someone may have been able to access your phone, get a new sim installed.
Good luck

 

[Mooncatt]

It has to be the phone...

Not necessarily. It sounds like someone is remotely accessing your accounts. If you have an easy to guess login, or share the same login, specifically passwords, across multiple accounts, then someone could do all this without ever touching your phone. Flow Methodman's suggestion and change all your logins and see what happens. I would additionally suggest a password manager so you can create individual but complex passwords without having to remember them all yourself

 

[Mike Dee]

I mean like, someone keeps accessing my accounts, email, eBay, etc etc. It has to be the phone because I made an account on an app and only logged into it from my phone and about 2 weeks later I found an email telling me they had suspended my account due to strange actions coming from my account, also happened with my PlayStation account, I logged in on the PlayStation app through my phone and later on had someone constantly trying to make their ps4 as the main ps4 for my own account so I know something is up but I don't know what.

Though the phone may be a common denominator, it doesnt have to be the phone per say. It could be a site you visit, an unsecured public wifi you connect to where hackers love to play or any number of possibilities. The phone can certainly be a conduit but not necessarily the culprit. Not trying to give you a hard time but you may have change what you're doing and how youre doing it. It's not easy to pinpoint without more information but I reccomend a completely clean install and dont restore backed up apps. Go with fresh installs and install essentials only at first to see if the problem returns. Avoid public wifi and turn any auto connect features off.

 

[B. Diddy]

Also, if you ever log into an account on a public or shared computer (like at work or at a library), always make sure to log out. It's somewhat easy to forget that you logged into your Google account, and if you leave it on the public computer, then the next person who uses it suddenly has access to a lot of your information (although very sensitive information will still require your Google password to be entered again). But if you have Chrome's automatic password fill-in option turned on, then anyone logged into your Google account could potentially get into those other sites if Chrome saved the login credentials.

 

[msm0511]

Do you use the same password for different accounts? One of those emails you got regarding your account could've been a phishing email. If you followed one of those links in the email, and signed in they could've logged your password.