Have I got a malware in my Xperia10Plus?

[perttih]

My phone made screen selections by itself and quickly.

The phone was locked with 3 android applications minimized, Logitech Harmony, Philips Hue and WhatsApp. I opened the phone and opened Philips Hue. When Hue opened, the display begun to make operations by itself very quickly. It changed the ambience, closed wifi, opened mobile data and gps and camera. When I saw this I immediately pressed the power button and got the phone to reboot. After reboot the phone seemed to work normally, but I had to close gps, change mobile data to wifi, change ambience and adjust the volume etc.

I wonder what happened? Everything happened very quickly like phone were running a script? Is it technically possible? Is there a way to save screen selections to a script? Or do the system have a cache for screen selections? Was the phone running something old selection chains?

One thing is that I had developer mode on in the phone and a simple short password only. So if somebody really had wanted to log in to the phone, it had been possible to guess the password. But my wlan is password protected and lan is behind NAT. Of course there are these Logitech Harmony, Philips Hue, TV Digibox and digi-TV in the same home network, if somebody get in to the network that way??

Now I wonder what to do. Should I reinstall everything from scratch?
I tried to use collect-logs script, but because I had rebooted the phone there was no logs from the time, when everything happened. Do the SailfishOS log events that the phone is doing?

Do somebody have good ideas what should I do?

SailfishOS v. 4.3.0.15

[akikyo]

I dont think so, from my experience, sometimes this happens usually for android apps. Looks like random spamming on screen due to lag… Sometimes annoy me while chatting on Signal. Turning screen off solves problem. We should look deeper to this problem.

[nephros]

No malware, this is a hardware issue with the 10 and 10plus. Search for ‘ghost touches’ here.

It can sometimes be solved by twisting the phone slightly.

Taking care not to bend the phone, and maybe putting it into a sturdy case can help.

[rtr2001]

I doubt it’s malware.
I’m experiencing similar things when connection drops to 2G ( bad coverage , ex: rink, metro…).
The GUI acts crazy for a while, launching applications , switching tasks and so - fast peaced.
I don’t know if this frenzy continues when screen is switched off.
Xperia X, 4.2.0.21, Android layer installed but not started .

I suspect Ofono hogging the cpu and derailing the touch event dispatcher. Considering my knowledge, could be Martians as well.

[perttih]

OK, good to hear these answers. I follow how it behaves in the future. I don’t have critical info in my phone, but it has access to my email etc, so it were not nice if someone had got access to the device.

Thanks of the replies.

[nephros]

Just one more note:

iff someone got access to your device, it would likely be much easier for them to do malicious stuff just using the (cli) shell and other methods than it would be to simulate touch events.

[damoleon]

I’ve had similar issue with an Xperia X.
I could reproduce the issue each time I was in a place with poor 2G/3G reception

Acting crazy when poor phone signal

REPRODUCIBILITY (% or how often): 90% BUILD ID = OS VERSION (Settings > About product): 4.0.1.48 HARDWARE (XA2, Xperia 10…): Xperia X UI LANGUAGE: English REGRESSION: (compared to previous public release: Yes, No, ?): No, I had the problem before DESCRIPTION: the phone is acting weird when the 2g/3g signal is poor. It does not matter if Mobile Data is enabled or not. the phone starts apps on its own, closes other apps, start typing with the keyboard without me touching the keyboard ! like…

[Seven.of.nine]

I had this also previously some times, but more often the screen simply sticked and did nothing more (reboot necessary), until I opened the phone and fixed the plug of the flat cable coming from the touchscreen. The plug wasn’t properly plugged into the socket on the mainboard.
After fixing the plug, it never came back again and phone works fine now .

[tn71]

I’ve had this issue with my Xperia 10. I’ve never bothered to replace the screen or battery (which is suggested to potentially resolve the issue) but I’ve found turning the screen off/putting the phone to ‘sleep’ and turning it back on again usually resolves the ‘ghost touches’ - sometimes I have to do it a few times but it can help resolve it for a short period.

[perttih]

I have searched for the “ghost touches” here and found links to youtube videos and other documents, how to open and repair the phone. I will do that if the problem continues, now it has happened only once. It was only so surprising that I thought that someone had got access to the phone.

Thanks a lot of all advices I have got here;)

[rdomschk]

Yes it is a hardware false on the Xperia 10 series. I changed because this to xperia 10 ii. I think it is the battery because it is older it gets fatter and make pressure on the touchscreen inside. Only switch off the screen or twist the phone solved this for a time. It gets worse when the phone gets warm. I found no good solution for this problem. One times it send even a message on whatsApp to my daughter

[throwaway69]

Hopefully you didn’t get any ‘protestware’ (seeing all the cheering around no more code exchange with auroraOS): https://github.com/RIAEvangelist/node-ipc/issues/233
alternate link as the malware author is censoring the original issue: CVE-2022-23812 | RIAEvangelist/node-ipc is malware / protest-ware · GitHub

[rtr2001]

Hello, just noticed the ‘out of control’ behaviour on Xperia X, this time with stock Android. Same context : inside rink =>bad signal => drop to 2G => “possessed”.
Reproduced several times with going out(4G) then back in (2G or no signal ).

It’s the same unit that under SFOS displayed the same behaviour .

So it could be a hardware / firmware issue, lower level than the OS.