Should the "Permission Controller" be showing the downloads folder inside the file marked apps.

Melissa Gonzalez2

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Should the "Permission Controller" be showing the downloads folder inside the file marked apps.

My mother has a CAT phone,Model s42h system info in settings says the OS is linux and doesnt give any further information about the specific software setup ( that i could see. I dont have the phone in front of me right now ~ just going based on memory of what i looked at last night) Ive never seen a phone not list an OS version before but I guess it could be normal cuz it doesnt list it and its not like Im all that experienced in phone programs to argue it...
Anyway the purpose I had to examin the phone info in the first place was this; My mother has had a whole lot of fraud happen in the last 6 months. no matter what she does or how many times she contacts companies regarding the situation it keeps happening to the point that shes calling her financial institutions to fix her personal demographic info on a daily basis. she closes and account and an alert is sent that her address changed or whatever on another. The only account this hasnt happened to is the phone account and the phone account is in my name not hers.
So I started thinking maybe someone downloaded a keylogger in her phone since the only thing never touched was the account that never gets addressed by anyone using that phone.
so i looked it up on google how to detect keylogger and it says to go through the phone downloaded files and see if anything looks off or unfamiliar.
So I go through the phone and notice the weird OS system info but I know everything basically boils down to linux so I didnt get stuck on it;
I go in to the download folder as directed and she really doesnt have anything in there at all. Aside from 4 videos i took myself she has nothing except for a few in the folder marked apps.
Inside a very short list of about 9 things but all things i would see on my own phone in the same folder and recognize as normal EXCEPT for the very last one. This one is showing up with nothing more than the lil green android guy :cool: we know reps android but hes not green and is a bit different ( cant tell you why but looks weird)
its labeled "Permission Controller" I open it and its pretty generic inside, says it has access to all and has no denied permissions and I dont remember everything it listed but I do remember that the list of things it shows it has access to didnt drop down to a loooong ol list I usually see when I need to authorize use on my own phone.

PLUS+ I also noiced that the Builder Options ( tap 6xs to find options) were already open. I asked my boyfriend if he open them when he was helping her with her phone and he says he cant remember doing it but he says he wouldnt jump to conclusions about it because its always a possibility.
I know it wasnt my mother, she can barely get lock off the password screen the majority of the time let alone find the knock code to the secret door in the settings.

Based on this info,
+Do you think that I found the spyware program that used to get into my mothers accounts ?
+If so, based on what Ive described would it have been a program downloaded by someone with access to the physical phone or would it have been something she clicked on from an outside sender?
+and how do I go about uninstalling it?
If I just try to uninstall it the way I normally uninstall an app or delete a download will it delete the phones OS or anything it needs in order to boot up afterwards?
 
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B. Diddy

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Re: Should the "Permission Controller" be showing the downloads folder inside the file marked apps.

Welcome to Android Central! It's much more common for account security to be breached by more run-of-the-mill methods, like phishing or suboptimal password complexity and management. See these:

“I’ve been hacked” - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com
[GUIDE] How To Avoid Malware - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com

It's always important to use 2-factor authentication whenever possible, and make sure passwords are complex, not easy to guess, and not used across multiple accounts.

Although keyloggers are technically possible, the chances are low -- unless your mother is prone to clicking links that are presented to her by shady websites, and has allowed for apps to be installed from any unknown source.

Please register on this forum, which will allow you to engage in discussion more easily, as well as post images. https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html
 

Melissa Gonzalez2

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Re: Should the "Permission Controller" be showing the downloads folder inside the file marked apps.

My mother is old and doesnt understand technology well enough to understand how clicking unknow links is probably how she got here in the first place and doesnt matter what I say, she still does it on both her phone and her laptop.
Im nearly 90% sure that the phone has been compromised with something in someway, but I dont want to Stop, Delete, or Uninstall something that I think it might be and end up bricking her phone. Shes not one to chalk that up as an accident and I will be the one who she ultimatly blames for all her problems revolving around this.( werid~ I know~but it is what it is)
Being as sure as I am that the problem is a some kind of malware or spyware its got to be either a keylogger or someone cloned her sim card.
Since the whole world has started running itslife around 2 step verifications and your phone number itself being a major piece of identification for almost all financial institutions these days changing her phone number all together really shouldnt be an option unless there absolutly nothing else that can be done. It would only lock her out of her accounts and cause a whole jungle of obsticles to jump through before being able to get back in to them, if she ever gets back in at all being that her credit card companies have no problem changing her address to places shes never been and sending cards out to people she doesnt know. How would she verify who she is if she doesnt even know the addresses listed in the account after they changed it once again.
Shes had 2 new sim cards since this started, and 2 new phones. I thought it was her roommate who was doing it for a while but they have since moved out and even though everything has been changed within her accounts since their departure the problem still aggressivly progresses more and more every week.

So if theres anyone out there familiar enough with the CAT phone programing I really could use some device specific advice on what is and what isnt part of the original manufacturors operating system and hardware design
 

B. Diddy

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Re: Should the "Permission Controller" be showing the downloads folder inside the file marked apps.

I really don't think there's anything specific to the phone. Unless you hire some cyber security expert, the best you can do is to have her go through all of her sensitive accounts (Google, Yahoo, AOL, bank accounts, credit cards, social media, etc.) and create new passwords for each (again, that are not easy to guess -- a password manager would be ideal, but I'm guessing she's not technically savvy enough to use one of those). Then make sure any important data on the phone is backed up or synced somewhere, and do a factory reset. Also make sure she doesn't share her accounts or their passwords with anyone.

After the reset, set the phone up as if it were brand new, and ideally do NOT restore the phone from a backup. I know I mentioned making sure any important data is backed up, but in this situation, it would be best to just restore individual files (like photos, documents, etc.) rather than doing an automatic restore of all of the backed up phone data (which might automatically reinstall some malicious app).
 

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