Malware and spyware on the phone

What you'll get from this chapter: The difference between malware and spyware, how they usually get onto a phone, and what to do if someone close to you may have installed it.

Part III: Smartphone Survival Kit · Chapter 6 of 14

Last reviewed: October 18, 2026

Malware is the broad word for harmful software. Spyware is the kind that watches: messages, location, keystrokes, or the camera.

The usual way in is still an app or a link the person chose to open. Android phones are targeted far more often than iPhones because apps can be installed from outside the official store. Once installed, the program may hide, send data to the criminal, and sign the phone up for paid services. Malware families such as Joker (also called Bread) have hidden inside apps that looked ordinary; Google says it removed about 1,700 of these apps from the Play Store before anyone downloaded them.¹

Spyware is sometimes installed by someone who already has the unlocked phone, not only by a distant criminal. If a person you are afraid of has had the phone, the signs below matter, and so does help from a domestic-violence technology resource such as TechSafety.org, not only a fraud report.

A rarer, more advanced attack needs no tap at all. The next chapter explains zero-click attacks and who really needs to worry about them.