Is it possible to install spyware on system of the phone so that a factory reset won't delete it?

[AC Question]

I think I'm being tracked by some form of spyware,my phone location keeps turning on by itself,I also have some personal evidence of that as well which I'd rather not talk about.

Even after I've done a factory reset.
My phone is huawei p10 lite,and It is in fact rooted.

So if it's rooted and it is possible for you to install on system part,how would I go about removing that?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! It's possible for malware to be installed to the system root, which would then require a complete reinstallation of the firmware to eliminate.

What do you mean that your phone location keeps turning on? Are you talking about the Location Service toggle? Do you ever get a prompt asking you to Improve Location Accuracy, and if so, do you accept it?

 

[MarkoNikolic2]

Welcome to Android Central! It's possible for malware to be installed to the system root, which would then require a complete reinstallation of the firmware to eliminate.

What do you mean that your phone location keeps turning on? Are you talking about the Location Service toggle? Do you ever get a prompt asking you to Improve Location Accuracy, and if so, do you accept it?

Yes indeed,it just toggles on by itself.
Never get any prompts for location accuracy.

Alright then how would I go about reinstalling the firmware?
Is there any guide you can point me to?
I wasn't the one who rooted the device so I'm don't really know how that would go but I'm tech savvy so I won't have any problems following it.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'll move this to the P10 forum for more specific traffic.

Did you get the phone used, and the previous owner rooted it? Or did someone root the phone while it was in your possession?

Does this also happen in Safe Mode? How to boot your Huawei P10 / P10 Plus in Safe mode, wipe cache partition, factory reset [Tutorials]

 

[MarkoNikolic2]

Thanks.

Phone is new,i broke my screen and asked my friend to take it to a maintenance person he knew.
He did that,phone screen was fixed but the phone came rooted,didn't even notice for a while until I tried a factory reset,when i rebooted it launched me into TWRP.

Don't know why he would root it,but my main suspicion is to install spyware.


Alright so I've done something stupid.

I used TWRP to perform a factory reset and wiped the following partitions:
-Dalvik/ART Cache
-Cache
-Data
-Internal Storage
-Vendor

Now I can't boot up into my system,I can however go back into TWRP.

How should I proceed before i screw up some more?

Perhaps we could even go through the firmware reinstall as well while we're at it?

Thanks in advance!

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm afraid that's getting beyond my scope of knowledge, sorry! Hopefully someone else can weigh in.

 

[MarkoNikolic2]

I'm afraid that's getting beyond my scope of knowledge, sorry! Hopefully someone else can weigh in.

Alright,sure thanks for helping out.
Hopefully.

 

[Rukbat]

You're going to have to restore the system from TWRP if you ever backed it up, or you're going to have to flash the stock ROM back to the phone - in which case I'd recommend looking on https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/huawei-p10-lite, or joining and posting a question (like "How do I reflash a P10 Lite?").

 

[MarkoNikolic2]

Yeah already posted on XDA,waiting for an answer,didn't know the terminology was reflashing it though.
Will update the thread,thanks!

Also,what partition wipe was responsible for this?
The internal storage?