Question What to do with a hacked phone/account?

[MTXAC]

Hello,

Google help is useless to me so I'm asking here. My gmail account was hacked a few years ago, and it wasn't (and still isn't) possible to recover the account, Every time I try to recover my account, the security email goes to the hackers' own email instead of my own. I don't really care about the account itself, I never used it. All I want to do is unlink my phone from it so I can start using it again. Now I can only use it in offline mode so as to not allow any connections to it.

Anyway, there's nowhere I can call and the usual help is no help at all, so can you tell me what to do? I don't want to just throw the phone away, especially since the new phones are worse.

 

[J Dubbs]

Welcome to Android Central!

I would create a new Gmail account, and if you can get into the phone, which it sounds like you can, factory reset it in the settings and start over with the new account. You don't have to be online to factory reset it... you just need an online connection to set it up with the new account.

Or have you tried that already?

 

[MTXAC]

I don't see why this wouldn't work, but I'm pretty sure that as long as my phone is linked to my original account, the hacker can access my phone at any time, so I would only be feeding him new info and new account.

PS Thanks for the super fast reply.

 

[J Dubbs]

You're welcome
Once you factory reset and log in with your new account nobody else will be able to access anything on the phone but you

You're old account is gone, but the new setup will be completely secure Just make sure and use new passwords for everything.

 

[MTXAC]

Oh my god, thank you so much. I wish I had this information back then, but even so, better late than never. Especially when this phone is so awesome. As for the account, I dont really care about that as I literally didn't use the account for anything, which is also why it got stolen (I ignored the security email of password change).

 

[J Dubbs]

I'm glad I could help The new technology can be kinda scary... but knowledge is your friend Stick around and have some fun, plus you'll learn a lot of good stuff about your phone

We're all still learning lol.

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

Probably best to remove the old account from the phone before factory resetting

 

[MTXAC]

As far as I know, I either removed it back when I factory resetted it, or I couldn't remove it because of missing password. All I know is that now the account doesn't show in the account tab so I guess it's gone. Id feel better if you could confirm tho . Also, is there any info source from Google on this thing? like how do we know nobody can access the phone after stealing your account?

 

[J Dubbs]

As long as you factory reset from the settings in the phone itself the old account is gone, that's why it's not showing up. Removing the old account doesn't hurt, but as long as you are able to factory reset from inside the phones settings you're doing a complete wipe of information, so you're basically starting with a new phone.

The more important thing is to use new passwords

 

[MTXAC]

Of course, I changed my passwords back then accordingly. What I hate most is that I can't delete that old account or unlink my phone from it though. I would feel much better if I could. Although, it's good enough for me that that dude can't mess with me.

 

[MTXAC]

Oh by the way, I heard that factory reset doesn't actually erase your data properly and that there is a secure way of doing that. Should I do it? Seems it's very individual and every phone has a different way of doing it.

 

[mustang7757]

Oh by the way, I heard that factory reset doesn't actually erase your data properly and that there is a secure way of doing that. Should I do it? Seems it's very individual and every phone has a different way of doing it.

Hi welcome to AC!
Always the best way to factory reset is through settings menu , if you do it through recovery it still leaves user data.

 

[MTXAC]

Oh so that's like the opposite of what I was told. Good news then, cause I did it from the settings.

 

[mustang7757]

Oh so that's like the opposite of what I was told. Good news then, cause I did it from the settings.

Great it did it correctly

 

[mustang7757]

We have a thread on your particular issue.

“I’ve been hacked”

Smartphones have brought out various kinds of neurotic and paranoid reactions from users. The technology is difficult to understand, and it is easy for us to allow ourselves to suspect that bad things are happening, when in fact they’re not. Android Central regularly receives posts from guests...

forums.androidcentral.com

 

[MTXAC]

I was wondering why you posted this, then I noticed the second reply in that thread is what you're talking about.