Solved! What's the most effective way to detect spyware on Galaxy S8?

[MagicMel]

I have reason to believe that my son's phone, as well as, mine have been bugged. My ex has access to my son's phone during visitation. And in doing research, I'm seeing that this sorry of thing can be done remotely. In addition to battery loss, freezing up, hot temps and lagging, I often see things pop up on the top of my screen that I've never seen before. I'm talking about the screen that you can swipe down to open (notifications) with little icons, such as, battery, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. When I pull the screen down to see what it is, there nothing there with that icon. ie. This morning, I logged into my bank acct, and as soon as I did, a little thing popped up there that looked like an eyeball; like the "preview" symbol. I signed out, it went away, I logged back in, and it didn't come back. From what I can tell, phones can be bugged remotely, and can even record surrounding sounds, takes pics & videos, etc. The other day, he took my son's phone while he was in school, and via family link, I could see that there was activity on his phone and message apps. The phone app from my end on family link said that app had been removed from his device. When he got home, I checked it, and it was there and he was able to call me from it. However, shortly after that, while we were looking at his phone, that phone app just disappeared. How? Why?? Why would anyone want to remove the app that you use to dial phone numbers??!! I don't know what to do. Geek Squad? Plz help!!

 

[webworkings]

The best way is to save all your personal stuff (contacts, files, photos, etc., just not apps as they can't be saved) on an external location (cloud account, computer, etc.) and then do a full "Hard Reset" of the device. This will wipe it totally and start it up in its original status when first purchased. Just make sure you have the information on the account attached to the phone (google account) as you will need the email and password when restarting the phone after the "Hard Reset". If you don't have that, you can't access it after. Then, if you are worried someone is bugging a phone, you can put restrictions on it so that no one can install anything or access the settings of the device without the necessary password and name. This will, however, be something you will either have to give to the child so they can make changes themselves, which then leaves open the door for them to give the info to others, or make it so only you have access to make said changes/installations.

NOTE: Doing this will clear 'all' the data on your phone, so it is suggested you not choose this option unless you have to, or aren't worried about losing anything on the device.

Be sure you back up any data you want to keep, to a computer or cloud account, before doing the reset.


To "Hard Reset" the phone...

1. Make sure that the phone is actually powered off.

2. Remove your SD card, if there is one in the device.

3. Press the "Power" and the "Volume Up" buttons, together, until you see the start-up logo on the screen.

4. Once you can see the logo, release the buttons and allow the device to enter the "System Recovery Mode".

5. Next use "Volume Down" button to get to the "wipe data/factory reset" option.

6. When in recovery mode the "Volume Up" and "Volume Down" buttons are how to can navigate and highlight what option you need.

7. Once you have selected the "wipe data/factory reset", press the "Power" button to select that option.

8. On the following screen, repeatedly press the "Volume Down" button until the "Yes - delete all user data" option is what is selected.

9. Then press the "Power" button to hard reset the phone.

10. If you took your SD card out in step 2, when the device is up and running again, reinsert the SD card.