We use our smartphones for almost everything – working, banking, shopping, and of course chatting with family and friends. With increasing usage of phones, viruses or malwares have multiplied as fraudsters look to cheat people of their data, money or simply offload money-making ads on them. In the bargain, people suffer damaged devices, loss of money and much more.

Your phone could be stealing your data, emptying your bank account, or tracking you. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to determine if your phone have been infected, and what you can do to remediate the issue. That’s why it is important to know how to detect viruses on your phone nowadays. Every smartphone user, be it Android or Apple, need to take precautions so that they don’t end up with huge losses. Keeping this in mind, it’s high time you learn how to find and remove the viruses from your smartphone.

Signs that your device has virus

• Even though you have not been using it much, your smartphone is hot to touch. It might be possible that someone has hijacked your device and is using its power for their illegal work.
• Your data is getting exhausted too fast as the virus tries to run a lot of background apps. The battery of your smartphone drains faster as the malicious apps take up a lot of energy.
• Intrusive pop-ads are another sign of a malware that hints there’s hidden hardware on it. They don’t just serve unwanted ads but can also infect the device with malicious viruses.
• Weird appearance of strange app on the homepage of your phone. Having an app that you didn’t even installed is a big sign of a malware. These apps may contain virus.
• A slowdown in your phone’s performance is another sign that it is contaminated with a malware.

How to find and remove virus from your phone

1. Make sure there are no apps on your phone that you have not downloaded. These apps have probably infested with malicious malware.
2. Check which apps on your device is consuming more data than others. Delete them.
3. Go through all the applications on your smartphone and get rid of the ones with bad reviews on app stores or those apps that you have not downloaded.
4. Look for other apps you think may be infected. There is a chance that some apps may have been infected by the virus. If you think you can identify those apps, delete them immediately.

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Tips to protect your phone from virus

Here are some useful tips that you can follow to protect your phone against future risks:

• Install robust security software to protect your device
• Keep the software updated with the latest versions
• In e-mails and messages, don’t click on suspicious links
• Always install apps from trusted sources, like Play Store or Apple Store
• Never use unsecure Wi-Fi connections. When connecting to public Wi-Fi, always use a VPN
• Use strong and complicated passwords

It is always a good idea to not wait until your phone gets infected with virus or malware. Make protecting your device a priority. Having good antivirus software in your phone PCs, and tablets could help prevent virus spreading from device to device.