My Expirience with NOTIFICATION 1
First of, both my Galaxies are clean devices, apps only from playstore and galaxy store, never sideloads. Both of them protected by Norton Antivirus payed version. Wireless Routers have different login names and passwords both protected with antivirus ‘Trend Micro’ and active firewall on IPV4 and IPV6 level.
My homecomputer has Norton 360 (payed version) firewall activated on IPV4 and IPV6.
I experienced a sluggish network since Notification 1; computers running extremely slow, streaming services stuttering, pin machines refusing service, tv decoders flipping, router using it’s processors up to 100%, alternating between the two cores. Router freezes ups, etc. I contacted my isp but the network was fine at the doorstep.
I started experimenting with both my galaxies (Flagships).
I have set the wireless-router/ap at factory settings with new admin and wifi logins, ensuring a safe network. I ran this network without any issues for up 48 hours, no galaxies hooked onto it. Then I hooked my galaxies to the network and within the hour the problems started to reappear. This I did many times over to ensure my Galaxies were interfering/messing with my network, and they WERE.
So, I reinitialised the network wireless router once again fully proteced with firewall and ‘Trend antivirus’. Factory reset the phone only using Google to reinstall backup. Network ran fine with Galaxy on it for 48 hours.
Then I did a factory reset yet again of my Galaxy, this time reinstalling the backup from my Samsung Account. And within the hour my network was sluggish, inflicted again.
You can see on your device if it is inflicted. Go to settings – connections – Data Usage – WIFI data usage. When you notice an app (whatever the name) using extreme data (mine up to 12GB on an app called ‘Removed’??) you can be pretty sure that your network is comprimised by your Galaxy.
I’ve seen this in both my wife’s and my phone. Also close friends of mine show the exact same insane data usage.
The procedure to follow to clean up your network is following:
- Log out from samsung account and delete it (needed to avoid third party access yet again and destroy all infected backups)
- Restore your phone to factory settings
- Restore your router/ap to factory settings, using new login names/passwords for both admin and wifi, update firmware and set antivirus and firewall active both on IPV4 and IPV6
- Hook up your Galaxy to the fresh network and restore your phone using only your google account
- Make a new Samsung Account with new email address and password to get your Samsung App’s
Your network and phone are now free from infection (I dare not call it a hack but I am pretty sure it is)!
Also Mobile Network data is used as long as your device is infected, so make sure you do not run into high bills. Check it and put your phones to Factory Reset! An app called ‘Glaswire’ can help you monitor your networks both Cellular and WIFI.
There is still one maybe in this procedure and that one arises when you hooked up your Samsung Account with your Google Account. Mine were seperate, so I was unable to check this.
Again, this is my personal experience, if you have the same issues, this is the source to suspect and you can accordingly set things right again!
Take care
Patrick