Although it will not be the usual thing, someone may have been able to discover the different passwords that we have been saving in the phone manager, or simply that some malware has sneaked into our phone and managed to steal the mobile keys. But, there is always some trace that will warn us of this.
Therefore, we are going to see what we can review from our mobile phone in order to find out if our suspicions are true or it is just a simple thought. In addition, we will explain how you can have the help of a website or even Google, which could warn us in case the passwords have been exposed for one reason or another. And, of course, if so, we must change all our keys.
What can you check
Mainly, there will be different aspects that we will have to look at with a magnifying glass if we believe that someone has discovered the mobile passwords. Not only the different keys with which we start the session in different apps or websites, but also the key with which we unlock the phone. Although this last case will be easier to solve. In any case, these are the different ways in which you can check if your passwords have been leaked on the Internet , or if someone has taken them.
The applications
This will depend on whether or not the app we use has a code to log in. Like, for example, an app for a specific game. Or, even if they have done with the password of your Android account, they could be able to remotely remove your applications from the phone. It would only be enough for them to access Google Play , log in and delete or install whatever they want. Therefore, if you have noticed that at one time or another applications have appeared or disappeared from your mobile device, the truth is that they could have discovered your passwords or could have also ‘hacked’ your smartphone with malware. To rule out the first possibility, we must go to see the login history.
The login history
One of the best options to find out if someone has been able to access any of your accounts, such as in social media apps, email and other similar services, always, or as a general rule, we can review the access history to the account that we want. This will depend on the app itself , because in some cases we can only do it directly from the web version, while in other apps, such as Instagram, we can review it directly from the application on our phone.
From there, we will be able to see the exact one, the location and which device has been logged in. Therefore, if we see a suspicious device in the history, we are correct: someone has stolen my account password. For this reason, we recommend that you enable two-step authentication in all the apps on your phone. With this, we will make accessing your account even more difficult, since we use a second method to authenticate that it is us. Normally, we can choose between doing it with an SMS message to our mobile, a security key or an authentication app. In the latter case, we recommend Microsoft‘s own app:
Notifications
The alerts we receive on our phones will also serve as an indication to discover if someone is doing something on our accounts because they have stolen our mobile keys . Therefore, we recommend that you pay attention to any strange notification you receive. Even now, in the great majority of apps they will let us activate an option with which it will warn us if someone has tried to log in to any of our profiles.
In any case, we must review a Security and Privacy option within the app to see if they offer us a way to receive notifications to our email or directly by SMS to the phone number that we establish.
In addition, as a last recommendation, it never hurts to manually check if suspicious messages have been sent to your friends on Facebook, Twitter, by mail or otherwise impersonating us from our accounts.
Google warns you
Another of the best ways to find out if the passwords of your Google profiles and other apps on your mobile may have been exposed, are weak or are used in several accounts, will be through the key manager of your Android mobile device. Although, you can also use it on iPhone, but it will be through its website . And it will depend on whether or not you have been storing your codes in its manager.
However, iOS also has a similar tool in Settings> Passwords. Within this section it will give us ‘Security Recommendations’ when the codes we use are weak, have appeared in a data breach or are being used on another website.
On Android phones we must go to Settings> Google> Manage your Google account> Security> Password manager> Check passwords. In this way, we will be able to know if our passwords are exposed on the network or not. In some cases, we will even receive an email directly, like the one we can see in the following photo.
Find out with a website
On the Internet we can find everything, such as this web page called ‘ Have i been pwned ‘ that will let us know if the passwords that we use daily in our profiles have been filtered. Therefore, we will only have to enter it from the browser of our mobile phone, either Android or iOS and write the email you want to check, that is, the email with which you log in.
At the end of the search, this web page will tell us if any profile linked to this email has been exposed on the net. In the event that it turns green, it will mean that none of your passwords associated with that email has been leaked on the Internet. Therefore, your passwords related to this will continue to be safe, for now.
However, if it appears in red just below the search bar, we are sorry to tell you that your passwords have been exposed online . So you run a great risk of someone trying to steal your accounts or impersonating you. In addition, it will warn you of the times in which it has been leaked. That is why, if this is your case, you should immediately change your password. If you don’t know how to do it quickly from your phone, go to the next section.
How to change your passwords
Google will also allow us to change the passwords quickly from its own manager. Therefore, to enter the manager, we must go again to the Security section> Password manager> Click on the settings button and enable or disable the option to save passwords.
On the same screen of the Password Manager, we will have to go down to see the sites from which we have remembered the keys. If we touch the Settings button, we will discover the apps or websites that have been rejected and that you have not allowed to remember your credentials. If we want to modify them, we must click Check passwords in the Passwords review section. From there, we can click on Change password, taking us directly to the specific app in which we are going to put another code.
We can do the same from an iPhone. We will only have to enter Settings> Passwords and click on the option ‘ Security recommendations ‘. There, the different accounts in which it would be better for us to hurry to modify their code will appear. Therefore, we must click on ‘Change the password on the website’ to directly open the page to modify the password .