Summary
This article will clearly demonstrate why mobistealth’s invisibility claim does NOT include keeping you hidden, by uncovering the place on an iPhone where mobistealth can be seen that will give you away every time.
You will read a detailed explanation of how we tested the accuracy of mobistealth‘s claim that their cell phone monitoring software is undetectable on the target phone. We present the facts that clearly show which spy phone software only says it protects you from being found out and which one actually delivers true mobile monitoring invisibility.
We explain our testing methodology and look at the test results using a commercially available copy of MobiStealth installed on an iPhone 4 and 5s.
You’ll see FlexiSPY’s and mobistealth‘s anti-detection features compared for detectability, and why FlexiSPY is the best mobile phone monitoring application for anyone who wants to stay totally hidden.
mobistealth Says Their Software Is 100% Undetectable
What you see below is an actual screen grab from mobistealth’s website where they claim their software is invisible. While it says right there: “No One Will Ever Know They Are Being Monitored”, the site doesn’t warn you about the other ways mobistealth can be easily detected on the target phone.
From the mobistealth website. They are clearly advertising as being hidden with the line “No One Will Ever Know They Are Being Monitored”
While it is true that mobistealth hides the app icon on the target phone, what they don’t tell you about are other traces created by a mobile spy app which will quickly show that the target phone is being monitored.
Find mobistealth on an iPhone? It’s Easy.
Before explaining how we located the mobistealth software on the iPhone, we should first take a look at two important iPhone technical features that apply to any spy phone program. Spyphone developers have to be sure these features are properly designed if the software is to stay absolutely invisible.
First, there are the application permissions found in the Settings menu. The second is the device’s starting state: jailbroken or not jailbroken.
If you’re not exactly sure what jailbreaking is, the idea is simple: If you want to install a mobile phone spying app on an iPhone, it’s necessary to get special access that allows you to install the programs you want to use, or “jailbreak” the device. Later in the article you’ll see what happens on the iPhone when you do this, and how it can get you discovered. First, let’s look at Permissions.
Application Permissions will get you discovered
When an application which is running on an iPhone has to send data, use the GPS or microphone, it must first get special permission from the phone’s operating system.
These permissions are displayed in the iPhone’s Settings menus as shown below:
- Settings > Cellular
- Settings > Location Services
- Settings > Microphone
If you simply tap open any of these menus you can see the name of the application requesting the permissions.
This is a sure giveaway that monitoring software has been installed on the iPhone and is one of the first places someone searching for spy phone software will check.
When we tested our copy of mobistealth, their software did indeed stay hidden in the location services and cellular permissions menus. And although it also did not appear in Settings > Microphone, we found that this was only because the audio recording feature mobistealth offers as part of their software failed to work. Therefore we could not determine for sure whether mobistealth is visible in Settings > Microphone, even if the feature can be made to function as advertised. But digging a little further we uncovered something about the associated function that makes the question of invisibility in this menu a moot point.
The SMS message command needed to activate remote audio recording could actually be seen, giving the target phone’s user a clear sign that mobistealth has been installed.
FlexiSPY removes this detection risk by making sure our software is always hidden in the Permissions menus, and that remote command text messages are never visible on the target phone.
As simple as these invisibility threats are to find, there’s an even easier way to detect a mobile monitoring app on a cell phone.
Jailbreaking can ruin invisibility
Before you install any software the iPhone will be in one of two states:
Either the target phone is NOT YET jailbroken or it is ALREADY jailbroken.
Once you install spy software on a cell phone, you have to be sure there is no sign on the target phone that indicates anything has been changed internally. And this is how one small but crucial detail will give you away– any time a mobile phone is jailbroken, an icon labeled “Cydia” appears in the app directory.
So in order for a mobile monitoring app to be 100% hidden, the following two conditions must be met at the time of installation:
– If the mobile phone was not previously jailbroken, the Cydia icon must not be visible.
– If it’s already jailbroken, the existing installation package list must not show any changes.
Phone NOT jailbroken a detection risk
This Cydia Icon is definitely going to look strange to the owner of the phone
The below grab from an iPhone that was not jailbroken before mobile monitoring software was installed clearly shows the Cydia icon in the app directory just as it looks on the target device. That icon’s sudden appearance is more than likely to attract attention and raise suspicion that the device is being remotely monitored.
Solving the Cydia icon problem is a simple matter of designing the software so that the Cydia icon can be removed, but mobistealth’s software doesn’t include any such feature.
Phone ALREADY jailbroken causes suspicion
On an already-jailbroken iPhone, the presence of the Cydia icon will already be familiar to the person using it, but what will make them suspicious is the sudden appearance of an unknown installation package. And this is exactly what happens because mobistealth puts an additional Installation Package called SBTerminal onto the iPhone.
Here below you can see that their Installation Package listing is plainly visible in the Sources menu. This is an obvious red flag that will quickly draw attention to the fact that mobistealth’s software is running on the target phone:
Although it’s actually quite simple to tap and delete the tell-all listing, many people are not aware of this. But with FlexiSPY there’s nothing to tap away, because our software automatically deletes the package source once the installation is complete.
Here’s mobistealth being shown at vyk..
How did we identify “vyk.me” as mobistealth? It clearly is not a trusted app like Twitter, nor is it part of the iPhone’s software like Maps. Plus— we made sure that no other software besides mobistealth was installed after jailbreaking our test phone.
Our finding: You can detect mobistealth on an iPhone
mobistealth claims on their website “No One Will Ever Know They Are Being Monitored”, but what this actually means is their software runs without displaying an icon. Our point is that “no icon” is not a guarantee of absolute concealment, because there are other clear signs of mobistealth on the iPhone.
Our advice to mobistealth customers: get that Cydia icon hidden if you don’t want to get discovered.
We show you here how FlexiSPY lets you do this with just one click.
mobistealth‘s claim that “No One Will Ever Know They Are Being Monitored” doesn’t actually say it will keep you fully concealed. The true test of any mobile phone monitoring software is strictly pass/fail — it either keeps you hidden from the phone’s owner, or allows you to be detected.
What this all means to you
Seen from the developer’s viewpoint, spyphones should be called “Monitoring Concealment” apps, because a properly designed spyphone will have invisibility in all areas of the target phone as its top priority. So for someone who needs powerful mobile phone monitoring capabilities and the assurance they will never be detected, the facts confirm it: FlexiSPY hides the app and keeps you concealed.
Appendix
Below you can find the detailed specifications of MobiStealth.
For reference, this chart shows the specifications of mobistealth used in our tests.
Stay tuned for further blog pieces as we face-off FlexiSPY against all other major spy phone competitors to show that, when we say FlexiSPY really is the best spy phone software and really is 100% undetectable once installed, we have the evidence to prove it.
You can see how FlexiSPY stacked up against the remaining competitors for software visibility by clicking the links below.