Social Media: There are so many ways to communicate with social media, but if you break it down, your communication is either by word of mouth or the written word (picture). When you verbally communicate, your message is delivered and heard, then responded to or ignored, but you know right then whether your point was taken or rejected.
In the written form, usually by e-mail, text, or some form of social media, it is derived from a device, a cell phone, a tablet, a laptop or a tower computer. Your personal information is stored in these devices, and sometimes the cloud…and no matter what you write, text, post somebody somewhere that you don’t even know may have access it. That’s the chance we take when we utilize a form of social media. But what about those times when we want to communicate just to one person, have a private phone call or send a private message that we want to keep strictly with the sender and the receiver; what happens when the process is hacked?
Definition: use a computer to gain unauthorized access to data in a system.
Unauthorized access to data in a system; that data could be anything saved on your device, it also means it can access your telephonic communications as well. And it used to be that you had to have knowledge of the device and computer skills to perform such an act. Now, all you need is an application that you can send without the recipient’s knowledge or permission to their device and you have access to everything they do. You can hear conversations, you can see texts, emails and even websites they visit, and you even have access to their contact list. There is spyware software available to anybody who wants to purchase it, although illegal in the US, with a few exceptions, it is a rapidly growing business as technology improves.
Everybody at one time or another has been hacked, or their Facebook or email has been hi-jacked and there is nothing you can do about that, but you really want to protect your cell phones and your computer. Do not download everything that is sent to you. Know who the sender it, know what you are downloading. Behind that beautiful scenic picture someone sent you could be a spyware application that is downloaded when you open the picture.
How do you know if you have some type of spyware on your cell phone? There are some signs, the phone or tablet becomes very hot to the touch, it loses its battery life quickly, (we all know that’s been a problem with many of our devices, they just don’t hold the charge as long as we wish), but if your device has been (Hacked or a Cell phone Spyware Application has been installed) the battery life will be significantly shorter. It may do strange things, like turn on automatically it. Your data usage may increase as well. But one of the telltale signs is that others know information you knew you didn’t share.
We have a Client who swore to us someone had installed spyware on her phone. People at work were repeating information she only shared with a select few and none of them with any of her co-workers. She knew of no other way anyone should be able to repeat her private conversation(s). She needed a spyware detector to see if she had any illegal spyware application on her cell phone. informed her there really isn’t such a thing that a layman could utilize to find spyware, but we were well equipped to conduct a cell phone spyware detection analysis. We told her that cell phones operate like computers, and a computer forensic expert has the capabilities to conduct mobile phone forensic analysis for spyware removal.
Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations
