Phone infected with unknown virus?

[Chris Ditty]

Can someone recommend a good android app that monitors and records all connections to the outside world?

It seems that my wife and I have managed to get a virus on our phones and we can't find out how to identify or get rid of it. We've both wiped our phones, installed several antivirus programs, addon programs, etc and nothing detects it. I've even changed my google password thinking someone hacked it, but it still gets mysterious installs. The latest detection attempt was to use something called network connections. It records all network connections and exports them to a csv file. I happened to have it running this am when a new program was secretly installed and it detected nothing.

The programs being installed are varied. It's mostly games, but even OpenTable was secretly installed. Somehow, the programs being installed are coming from the Google Play store. It's probably taking the google permissions already on the phone and pulling from there. Strange this is, when I look at the list of installed apps on google play, these aren't listed.

I've tried AVG and several other big name anti-virus programs. Nothing is ever found.

I'm at a loss. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[srkmagnus]

How were you alerted that a virus was installed? If you factory reset the device and the anti-virus apps you installed are not detecting it, then it's safe to say it's no longer there. With these types of virus', be savvy with where you download files from and stay away from sites that provide free apps as opposed to paying for the apps in the Play Store. Stick to the Play Store or Amazon and you'll be OK on that front.

 

[Chris Ditty]

I know there is a virus or something installed because we both have the same programs being installed without our knowledge or permissions. I did a factory wipe on mine and downloaded all my apps again and the mysterious installs started happening again. My wife did a wipe on hers last week and hers she started getting weird installs again too.

My wife has only downloaded apps from Google where I have done Google, Amazon and the humble-bundle, but my wife hasn't so she couldn't have gotten it from Amazon or Humble.

 

[kernmal]

I did a factory wipe on mine and downloaded all my apps again and the mysterious installs started happening again.

After the factory reset, during the setup process uncheck the option to Restore the device (so you don't start automatically downloading all the apps that you had previously installed). Sync to your Google account and don't install any apps. Then see what happens. Then over a period of time, install your apps one at a time and monitor what happens.

FYI. I use Avast for "malware" detection. There are certain Google services that will update in the background and Avast will pop up in the notifications that it is scanning an installed app, even though I did not install anything. Play Store updates are an example of this.

Also, it is helpful when looking for help to identify what phone you have, what version of Android you are running and what carrier you are on.



Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[mrsmumbles]

Also this used to happen on my hydro. I got free games installing themselves without wanting them. And they were from the play store.

Uninstall any lesser known free games you may have installed or disable them and see if the problem clears up.

On my phone it may have been because of the malware games I installed or from having GetJar installed.

Sent from my LG870 via Tapatalk 2