{"id":67316,"date":"2014-05-28T14:00:24","date_gmt":"2014-05-28T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/?p=67316"},"modified":"2025-07-02T00:40:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:40:21","slug":"how-to-detect-malicious-apps-eating-your-android-battery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-detect-malicious-apps-eating-your-android-battery\/","title":{"rendered":"How to detect malicious Android apps eating your battery"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new type of malware uses up your Android phone’s battery, letting\u00a0dangerous apps<\/a> fill their pockets at your expense. What are they, and how can you detect them?<\/p>\n

Maybe you’ve installed an app that promises to download cool wallpapers, and at first, everything seems normal.\u00a0But suddenly, you notice that\u00a0your battery is running out<\/strong> very quickly, and your data usage has risen dramatically.\u00a0It’s like there’s a bug sucking the resources from your phone or tablet.<\/p>\n

Malicious apps are out\u00a0there, and they’re trying to pass themselves off as normal apps. The mission? To gain access to your personal info, add viruses, or hijack your device. <\/strong> Android isn’t always able to identify these threats, which is why they’re both dangerous and annoying.<\/p>\n

Luckily, there’s a tool that helps you identify these resource thieves.\u00a0It’s called\u00a0OS Monitor<\/a>, and\u00a0I’m going to show you how to use it to\u00a0detect malware.<\/strong><\/p>\n

*Note: Pi, the application we use in this example, is completely harmless.<\/em><\/p>\n

1. Install OS Monitor from Google Play<\/h3>\n

OS Monitor<\/a> is the closest thing to\u00a0Windows Task Manager<\/a>.\u00a0It shows you the CPU usage<\/strong> of each visible and invisible\u00a0app, as well as active connections and other system statistics.<\/p>\n

\"OS<\/p>\n

2. Enable notifications from OS Monitor<\/h3>\n

Open OS Monitor, go to Options<\/em> (second icon on the right), and activate Show CPU Usage<\/em>.\u00a0This will make the CPU usage display in the notification area.<\/p>\n

\"OS<\/p>\n

3. Check out the CPU usage<\/h3>\n

Take a look at the CPU usage.\u00a0If you notice that it’s green for long periods of time<\/strong> without you doing anything, something weird is going on.\u00a0Open notifications to confirm this.<\/p>\n

\"OS<\/p>\n

In this example, the CPU usage is unusually high because of an app called Pi
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

4. Close and uninstall the vampire apps<\/h3>\n

Once you’ve detected the problem\u2013 high resource consumption\u2013 open OS Monitor.\u00a0You’ll see a list of applications sorted by CPU usage.\u00a0In our example, you’ll see Pi<\/strong>.\u00a0It’s using 80% of CPU<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"OS<\/p>\n

Clicking on the row with the app shows details including\u00a0memory consumed,<\/strong> and the current status.<\/p>\n

\"OS<\/p>\n

Hold it down, and the options menu will appear.\u00a0Select\u00a0Kill process<\/em> to close the application.\u00a0Then,\u00a0uninstall the suspicious app <\/strong>using the Settings > Apps<\/em> menu.<\/p>\n

\"Android<\/p>\n

A tip for the future<\/h3>\n

Be careful of the apps you install. Apps that promise a lot for little, or nothing, in return are the first ones you should be cautious about.\u00a0If you notice that your battery drains faster than it should, or that your phone is slow or unresponsive, follow the steps above to detect the\u00a0fake app.<\/p>\n

Have you ever experienced a malicious app before?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new type of malware uses up your Android phone’s battery, letting\u00a0dangerous apps fill their pockets at your expense. What are they, and how can you detect them? Maybe you’ve installed an app that promises to download cool wallpapers, and at first, everything seems normal.\u00a0But suddenly, you notice that\u00a0your battery is running out very quickly, … Continue reading “How to detect malicious Android apps eating your battery”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2044,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[2441],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-67316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330694,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67316\/revisions\/330694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67316"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=67316"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=67316"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=67316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}