Most problems, faced when a smartphone is not functioning properly, can be resolved by resetting the device, deleting the cache, or installing an alternative keyboard app. But, what if none of that is helpful?
Malware Might Cause Keyboard Malfunctions
While Android phones are apparently more vulnerable to malwares than any iOS, iPhones as well are vulnerable. If your smartphone’s keyboard glitches, lags, takes a long time to display on the screen or does not respond when you hit the keys, your smartphone may be infected by malware.
Smartphone keyboards may as well turn malfunctional due to malware since it generally affects the entire device. Malware may cause various issues, like overeating, lags and crashes, a decreased battery life, etc. A user’s personal data and privacy could also be compromised, depending on the kind of malware.
Malware frequently utilizes a significant amount of computing power; this is what initially causes the performance issues. Since the operating system of your smartphone is impacted, the malware will ultimately affect all the programs installed in it, plus the default keyboard apps.
What Types of Mobile Malware Would Cause Keyboard Issues?
A Trojan horse, which is malware imposing as a legit program, is one of the examples. More such malwares may include adware (malware displaying unwanted advertisements), spyware (malware that records information without consent), worms (malicious programs replicating themselves), and cryptojackers.
Cryptojacking attack includes threat actor accessing a targeted device to mine cryptocurrency. Thus, if a smartphone is attacked by a cryptojacker, its processing power would be utilized in order to solve cryptographic equations and create virtual currency for someone else. This would ultimately make the keyboard glitch, resulting in a variety of performance difficulties.
How to Remove Malware from Smartphones?
If a user suspects malware, that is responsible for affecting a keyboard, the initial caution he should take is by installing and programming an anti-virus software. There are numerous free anti-virus softwares available to users in all major app stores. Although not all would aid in removing the malicious program, they could be utilized to at least detect the malwares.
Users may as well look out for any unfamiliar or suspicious apps on their phones if they do not remember installing the same. Since there is a good chance for these apps to be deploying malware on your phones. Thus, these apps must immediately be removed, followed by monitoring your device with an antivirus program.
If none of this works, users are left with one option, i.e. master reset or factory reset. This would eventually restore the affected smartphone to its initial state when it was first powered up. However, this will lead your device to compromise its entire data, unless it is backed up somewhere so that you could retrieve it once the reset is successfully executed.