Is my phone hacked?

DKmac

Location services on my phone are randomly telling me I'm in Newmarket-on-fergus. Clicked Google maps location and it takes me to some sh!tty apartment block near shannon airport. I live on the opposite side of the country and am nowhere near this place.Is my phone potentially hacked and what should I do?

liamo

Move there to resolve the inconsistency?

(with apologies for the unhelpful comment but I couldn't help myself )

Impetus

DKmac wrote: »

Location services on my phone are randomly telling me I'm in Newmarket-on-fergus. Clicked Google maps location and it takes me to some sh!tty apartment block near shannon airport. I live on the opposite side of the country and am nowhere near this place.Is my phone potentially hacked and what should I do?

It could be many things - including a defect in the phone's GPS system. Normally a phone takes in location data from a number of sources - WiFi location (thanks to Google snooping of WiFi Mac addresses while driving all over the world to take pictures of every street), info from your mobile cellsite and GPS. Maybe there is a bug in the location software on the phone. You don't state what make/model phone. Have you updated the firmware recently? I can't see what benefit the average hacker would get from telling you that you are in a location that you clearly are not in.

ItHurtsWhenIP

DKmac wrote: »

Location services on my phone are randomly telling me I'm in Newmarket-on-fergus. Clicked Google maps location and it takes me to some sh!tty apartment block near shannon airport. I live on the opposite side of the country and am nowhere near this place.Is my phone potentially hacked and what should I do?

I don't think there's too much to worry about. I've a Samsung Galaxy S4 and it tells me I've been to places of a day, that I've not been near. In fairness these places are reasonably local (within 5-10KM), but it's never that accurate.

For example, I took my dogs for an hour long walk today, approximately 7KM away from my house, and the only place it showed me going to was my local village 2KM away.

Hotblack Desiato

Madness imho to keep 'please build up a comprehensive record of my movements for the authorities' turned on.

If you really must use it for a specific purpose then turn it off straight afterwards. If nothing else it wastes battery.

RossieMan

Sounds like you've your GPS set up to save battery so its probably just using your data to locate you. Can be awful inaccurate.

quainy

You may have an option to choose the accuracy of your location services.

It may be set at low or something along that lines. It may be resolved by setting it to high.

I don't imagine your phone has been hacked as remote access of your phone would not make your phone believe it has been moved.