This happened to me today, September 12, at about 6pm. Any ideas about what happened, what's going on, and what I should do?
I was at home alone with my 2 year old -- I was feeding her dinner. All of a sudden, I hear my mom's voice saying, "Bob, Bob, where are you?" This was highly unusual, since my mom lives in another city.
I spun around and after a few seconds, figured out that the voice was coming from my phone, which was on a high shelf. That's where I normally put it, way out of my kid's reach. The phone had been sitting on the shelf for at least half an hour or more. It was locked. I hadn't touched it, my kid hadn't touched it, there was nothing leaning on it.
I took the phone in my hand. Skype was running. Video, from my mom's side, was on -- I saw her on the screen. I could hear her and she could hear me. The video from my side was apparently off -- she could not see me and there was no video of myself on the screen. The time elapsed was approximately 1:30 when I got the phone.
(I am not 100% sure about the order of the following, since it happened in a short period of time, and I was still shocked that this was happening.) The phone (Android 4.4.2) was still locked. When I pressed the home button, it took me to the PIN screen. I entered my PIN. Then I saw the home screen.
The home screen was blinking. This has never happened before. I would see the homescreen for a moment, then the screen would be completely black. Then home screen again. It blinked on and off several times -- perhaps 10 or 15. While it was blinking, nothing I pressed appeared to work.
It finally stopped blinking and I got into Skype right away. (Skype was in the notification area -- that's where I pressed.) (This ends the sequence where I'm not 100% sure of the order of events.)
I talked with my mom for a few minutes, still shocked. I turned on my camera during the conversation.
Here is what my mom said happened, from her side. She went into Skype on her tablet. It showed that I was not signed in. This is correct, I was not signed in. I rarely sign into Skype. I only use it to call my mom. Me being her only son, she decided to try me anyway. I didn't pick up. (On my side, I did not hear anything.)
Then, after a few minutes, she received a Skype call from me!!! She picked up. She says she could hear me talk to my kid. After I hadn't said anything to her for awhile, she started talking.
After the conversation, I immediately uninstalled the Skype app.
About half an hour later, I disconnected my phone from the Google account. Then turned off my phone. The phone does not have a removable battery -- it's off as far as I know.
Then, on my computer, I went into Google Account Permissions and revoked my phone's access. Finally, I changed my Google password.
Incidentally, on September 2, Google warned me about "unusual activity". There were a bunch of sign-in attempts that Google prevented. The attempts were from the same city that I live in. I had changed my password after receiving the warning, but didn't do anything else.
What do you think?