Security of Android phone; If you are worried about your phone being infected with malware, this might be a logical way to install anti-virus apps on your Android phone. There are many free or paid security apps that provide security regardless of the phone hardware. Of course, you can also rely on security features such as Google Play Protect.
Unfortunately, due to the popularity of the Android operating system and a large number of its users, we are witnessing the growing number of Android malware, and considering this issue, neither of these two solutions can be considered as a 100% solution.
But in the following, we will introduce you to ways to check the security of your Android phone, which can help you a lot in this way.
1. Check your phone’s antivirus application
Undoubtedly, the most important security feature of an Android security application is the ability to detect and quarantine potential threats before causing any damage to the device.
You can use a free tool called F-Secure AV-Test to test the performance of your phone protection services. This tool uses an anti-malware test file developed by EICAR (European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research) to test how security apps work on your phone.
In fact, the test file developed by EICAR is designed to be identified as a virus, but it is not really a virus and it is completely harmless.
After installing and opening the F-Secure AV-Test app through the Play Store, if the security app on your phone has instant protection, the device should be activated immediately and block the AV-Test. But if your app does not use this feature, you can manually scan the phone and then the malicious code (fake) should be detected by your device.
If you do not see any warning after scanning the phone, you should know that the security application of your choice is not able to detect this potential risk and you should choose a more efficient app.
2. Check your phone settings
Enabling insecure features or disabling Android secure features is another way that will compromise your phone’s security and violate your privacy in ways you may not even realize.
You can use the free SAFE Me app to diagnose and fix these vulnerabilities. Developed by cybersecurity company Lucideus to raise awareness of online threats, the app scans your phone and gives it a “trust” rating based on current settings.
To separate the content found by this app, select the middle icon from the options in the bottom bar of the app.
On the Device tab, the options that you have enabled or disabled correctly will be highlighted. For example, you should have Screen Lock and Device Encryption enabled, but Location Services or Show Password should not be enabled.
Similarly, in the Connection tab, if you have enabled USB Debugging, Bluetooth or NFC options, you will see a red cross. By selecting any of the titles, you will be given more information about the dangers and you can enter the device settings from the same section to eliminate the vulnerabilities.
However, before using this app, you must confirm your registration and email. This allows SAFE Me to check if your data has been published in the woodpecker space. You can check this by selecting the incognito icon.
It also offers 100 free courses in areas such as password usage, call fraud, SIM card theft, and more. Each of these courses includes video content that, along with a series of short questions, seeks to improve your security knowledge.
3. Check app access permissions
Android natively provides app access management feature to help the user prevent unreliable apps from accessing their data. This feature is available on Android 6 and above.
To check the accessibility of applications, you can enter the Apps section from the settings menu and in the Advanced section, pay attention to the Permission manager option. Of course, in some phones, the latter may be known as App permissions.
Although this feature is very useful, it is actually a very basic access management feature. You can use the App Permission Dashboard to better manage app access permissions and view potential threats.
This free app uses a simple table to specify access to each app. Accesses monitored by this app include reading call logs, voice recording, access to contacts, camera, location, and texting.
By selecting the name of each app in the App Permission Dashboard settings, you can disable any unwanted access or even delete the app.
With this app, you can index information by access or apps. You can also add pre-installed apps to the list. The data collected through the App Permission Dashboard is also available as a spreadsheet so that users can have a history of accessing their apps.
4. Check the security vulnerabilities of Android apps
Unchanged default settings in apps that are used on a daily basis can lead to the disclosure or theft of user data. One way to fix these vulnerabilities in Android apps is to use the Jumbo app.
The app, which is also available for iOS, can check popular apps and services such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube and Twitter for security issues and privacy breaches.
When you install Jumbo, the app asks you to register your email to check for data leaks. If your information is stolen, Jumbo will let you know which services were vulnerable. After that, one of the most important things you can do is change the password for this service.
After answering a few questions about privacy and security knowledge, you will be asked to pay a fee. Of course, we suggest that you continue to use the free version of the app.
The monthly Jumbo Plus subscription costs $ 2.99 and the Jumbo Pro subscription costs $ 8.99, providing protection for more apps and access to more features.
5. Check apps running in the background
Hidden processes running in the background on an Android phone are one of the most important concerns of users; Because they increase battery consumption and take up more RAM. But some of them may be considered a risk to the security of the phone and may even put additional costs on the user.
There are many task manager applications that allow you to stop background processing that has been overlooked by security apps. But apart from all these apps, the best task management service is provided by the Android operating system itself. To use this feature, you must first enable Developer options as follows;
- Enter the phone settings. Select the About phone section and click Build number seven times. You will now see a message informing you that Developer options is enabled for you.
- After entering the Developer options menu, select Running services or Processes to see the programs and processes running in the background.
- Select the processes you think are suspicious and touch Stop to stop the selected services.
Some unwanted processes will be restarted automatically. If this happens, you can choose to keep the app associated with it or delete it from your device.
Source: Make Use Of
