After installing a popular-looking mobile game from an unofficial website, a user's Android phone now shows full-screen ads even when the game is closed, and the monthly data-usage alert triggers within days. The device is otherwise up-to-date and no other apps were recently added. According to best troubleshooting practice, which action should the technician take first to address this security concern?
Disable mobile data and Wi-Fi radios to stop the traffic.
Uninstall the recently installed game and verify future apps come only from the official store.
Clear the system cache partition from recovery mode.
Perform a factory reset and restore the phone from yesterday's backup.
The symptoms-persistent advertisements and abnormally high data consumption-are classic indicators of an unauthorized or malicious application. The least intrusive and most direct corrective step is to remove the suspicious game that was sideloaded from outside the official app store and then confirm all future installations come from trusted sources. Factory-resetting the phone would certainly remove the malware, but it is far more disruptive and is not the recommended first action. Clearing the cache partition does not remove malicious apps, and disabling all radios simply masks the traffic rather than eliminating its cause. Therefore, uninstalling the unauthorized application is the correct initial response.
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