0

I'm afraid that one person installed spyware on my phone. When I wanted to be sure that I wasn't being recorded I powered my phone off and I noticed that my phone is powered on. I noticed it about six times. It's hard to say how long after powering it off the phone powers on by itself. I would say that it didn't happen right away.

I have Mi 10t Lite. Android version 12 SKQ1.211006.001, MUI version MIUI Global 13.0.8 Stable 13.0.8.0(SJSEUXM).

I found in google following possible reasons:

  1. Battery issue
  2. Scheduled power on
  3. System update
  4. Broken power button

Power button works properly in my opinion, I have not notices any issues. Scheduled power on is turned off in my phone.

After three first unwanted powering on I bought new phone. I used new phone and observed my old phone. Old phone powered on himself three more times and it hasn't turned on by itself for over a week. This may rule out a battery problem because it is unlikely that the battery repaired itself and stopped turning on the phone. It can suggest that spy recognized that he can not spy on me because I use new phone (I left my old phone e.g. in the car).

Find device feature is turned off.

Unfortunately I uninstalled several apps and it is possible that some uninstalled application caused a problem but I did not uninstall anything suspicious and any application should not have permission to power on phone.

I wrote down all application that have permissions camera, call logs, contacts, location, microphone, sms, phone. I compared it with new phone and I googled application that I did not know I have not found anything suspicious.

I used adb logcat to copy logs. I powered phone off and when I noticed that phone is on I copied logs. Is it possible to find cause of powering on in logs? File has 102159 lines so I can not place it here. Additionally logs contain some fscrypt keys.

I do not have any antivirus software. As I know good antivirus are paid and I can not install it from google paly now because I am afraid to add credit card because I am afraid of spyware. I executed "Play protect" and result is ok.

I do not want to do factory reset because I am very curious if there is some spyware on my phone. If I do factory reset then probably I will never know that.

Improve this question
3
  • Malware is an option but IMHO a very very unlikely. Usually users don't let a phone stay off for a long time so no need to power it on from a malware perspective. Where have you kept when the power-on happened? If it was in your pocked my guess is the power button. Try to move it around carefully without actually pressing it. If it is triggered even without pressing you got the problem source.
    – Robert
    Commented Feb 4 at 13:19
  • I had the phone in pocket two times but 4 times in parked car under the seat so it is impossible that power button was pressed by accident.
    – Mariusz
    Commented Feb 4 at 21:30
  • You can install a free version Kaspersky. It will do everything you want and more. The only annoying thing is that the free version will not automatically update the virus database. So, I paid for it. A multi-user account is really really cheap. I am not associated with them.
    – Rohit Gupta
    Commented Feb 5 at 2:09

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

Check whether you have any alarm clock applications which could be causing this behaviour (even if it doesn't ring). Alarm clocks keep running in the background, so you can turn off our device for the night without turning off the alarm clock.

Improve this answer
4
  • I considered this option but I tested it and finally I excluded this option. I set alarm, I powered phone off and observed if phone will power on itself at alarm time. Now I wondering about this option. I noticed in logs strange time change. It looks like phone starts with incorrect date and time. Proper time is set about 2 seconds after start. Maybe alarm powers on phone but phone that is powered off has incorrect time so phone is powered on at other time that was set in alarm application. I will test it.
    – Mariusz
    Commented Feb 4 at 21:45
  • Standard alarm clock will not power up the phone.
    – Rohit Gupta
    Commented Feb 5 at 2:10
  • I think that alarm application is responsible for it. Phones is powered on about 6-7 minutes before alarm. If there is not enough time between power off the phone and the alarm time then phone does not power on. It is a reason why phone did not power on when I tested it earlier. I use standard alarm application.
    – Mariusz
    Commented Feb 5 at 14:03
  • 1
    It is clear now. I have following option checked in additional alarm settings in alarm application: "Shutdown alarm. Turn on to make set alarms go off when your device is powered off. Only alarms set for at least 10 minutes after you power off the device will go off"
    – Mariusz
    Commented Feb 5 at 14:05

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .