If you are helping a resistance movement, you need to be especially careful about the security of your phone. In this guide, we will look at the most common ways the enemy can spy on you.
Listening to your phone calls
One method is to listen to your calls over a cellular network. Law enforcement agencies may conduct such listening as part of an investigation. In the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the occupiers obviously don't need censorship or permission.
It is almost impossible to detect such wiretapping – you will not hear any external noises or sounds, because your voice is simply "picked up" from the line or from the operator's servers.
You can protect yourself by using secure messengers such as Signal, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, etc. instead of making regular calls.
Listening through the microphone
Another way is to connect to your smartphone's microphone. If the device is running spyware or a virus, attackers can remotely switch on the microphone and listen to everything around you. Absolutely everything can be monitored, and it doesn't matter if you are talking over a cellular network or via a secure messenger.
On smartphones, you can try to detect such a threat in the Privacy Settings. Find the list of apps with microphone access and disable this feature for suspicious apps.
Here's how to see app access permissions on Android:
- Open "Settings" on your Android device.
- Look for the "Privacy" or "Privacy protection" section. It may have a slightly different name depending on your Android version.
- In the Privacy section, find the "Permissions" or "App permissions" section.
- Open the list of permissions and find the permission to use the microphone, usually called "Microphone".
- Open this section and you'll see a list of all installed apps, with an indication of which ones have access to the microphone. Here you can disable microphone permission for any app that you find suspicious or unnecessary.
Some vendors may have their own specialised menus for managing application permissions, but in general, the principle of viewing and managing permissions will be similar to the one described above.
However, if it's some specialised and expensive software, you might not be able to find it.
Here's how to check and change app permissions for microphone access on an iPhone:
- Open "Settings" on your iPhone.
- Select "Privacy & Security".
- In the "Privacy & Security" section, find "Microphone".
- Click on "Microphone" – you will see a list of all installed apps with marks indicating which ones have permission to use the microphone.
- Select the checkboxes next to the apps you want to allow or deny access to the microphone.
It's also a good idea to regularly review this list of microphone permissions and turn it off for apps you no longer use. This will help protect your privacy.
Also, pay attention to the list of apps that drain your battery and Internet traffic the most, – spyware consumes a lot of energy. Such "spies" can also include completely "legal" applications, such as remote access technology (RAT) and other similar applications. RATs can be used to control your device, including activating microphones and cameras without your consent. Therefore, install only trusted apps from official sources and under your control if you ask someone to help you.
Use a reliable antivirus and scan your system regularly for malware. If you suspect that you have such software installed on your device, a factory reset may help. Be sure to back up your data before doing this, as resetting it will permanently erase it.