This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
For some time, I've had this mystery cell phone showing up in Network. The device changes almost every time I look. It can be any phone, and any name. I do not have a smart phone, nor anyone that connects to this network. I'm quite positive no other computer sees this device. It does not show up under DHCP logs on the router. I've tried switching workgroup names. I've shut absolutely every device off on my network, including my PC for a few minutes then restarted. I've scanned for viruses. What else is left to do?
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Answer accepted by question author
The phones may not actually be connected to your network. I recently saw the same thing on my network panel and thought that someone was using my internet; however, it turns out that, by default, windows shows you all the nearby devices, regardless of whether they are connected to your network or not.
You can disable this by going to Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center -> Advanced sharing settings, and enabling the option that says "Turn off network discovery."
I disagree with Mary - this may not be harmless. If the device is showing in your network list, your router has assigned it an IP address and it has access to your network and everything on it (depending on your internal network security settings). You really should investigate this further.
I have had the same issue recently - apparently a recent update to Android caused a cheap D2 tablet that I have for my kid to show up as a Phone on my network (whereas my Samsung and Asus tablets do not, nor do my iOS devices). Took me a while to chase it down based on MAC address, but finally found it.
Now, if you don't have an allowed Android device, it is likely someone is busting into your network (watch for cars out front of your house, or a person on a phone hanging out nearby), and this is obviously a problem.
Check your router for the option to Blacklist the offending MAC address to prevent it from getting an IP address (although most routers use a white list approach where you have to allow each device in your home). Blacklist is so much easier and worth a router upgrade in the case IMO. Some parental controls include a MAC filter, where you can disallow access based on a MAC address.
Changing passwords and SSIDs may work temporarily but it is pretty "easy" to hack WPA security if you know what you are doing or have a cheap tool from the internet.
On my D-link router I have MAC filtering turned on and this device does not show up on my connected device list. I don't know how to block a specific MAC address. Also the properties of this device show as shown below. Since Microsoft is now so quiet on this issue, is this just an artifact that their network list query to the router has a bug that it shows a device that the router knows about, but isn't connected inside the network OR worse is this a quiet acknowledgement that Microsoft knows and endorses this back door for NSA or whoever to pry into our private networks? Does this mean there is a hacker with cracked phone (sometime the phones name is a known Android crack) is within wifi range of my house?
This first showed up when I upgraded to Windows 8 and is still present even after I upgraded to Windows 8.1. When I first saw this I panicked and reset all my passwords to complicated 21 digit longs and renamed all my SSIDs and the device was immediately their after a reboot. Also when I look for attached users on my machine I do not see anyone but myself. Any help would be appreciated.
This usually goes away by itself after rebooting. Make sure nothing is connected to usb ports except the usual devices and no sd cards. Make sure your printer fax machine isn't connected to your regular phone line. That could show up as a phone. It really is harmless so you can ignore it.
