Virus attached to a webpage

Help Fairphone 1
1

Hi,
I had problems with a virus ridden wifi spot a while ago. I promptly installed an antivirus app, and now virulent webpages are blocked. However since then there is a particular address that everytime is visited loads a lot of unsafe content and prevents me from seeing the actual page. It happens only with that page and only with my phone. Any ideas are appreciated!

2

You will have to be a lot more specific than this. We can’t just “guess” what you want to tell us.
What virus do you think you have catched? What “antivirus app” (most are scam) did you install.
Why do you visit an adress that loads “unsafe content”?
Can you give us a list of apps that are installed on your phone?

Cheers.

1 Like
3

@lela i am not sure i understand you right. do you assume your phone was infected with malware?

If so, you should definitly do a hard reset of your phone. This will remove everything installed (including your data!) and, hopefully, all malware too.

If you phone was infected by virus, you should also check all data on the usb storage and sd-card using a virus scanner on a pc. Make sure the PC is up-to-date and has recently updated virus database and scanner, so you do not get another infection.

I would proceed als follows:

  1. Make sure my PC virus scanner is up-to-date
  2. Connect the Fairphone, copy personal data from internal storage and sd-card to the pc.
  3. manually check the folder i copied to files to using the pc’s virus scanner.
  4. remove the sd-card from the fairphone.
  5. perform a [hard reset][1]
  6. insert the sd-card
  7. reconnect the fairphone and copy back your data
  8. while you are at it, make sure you use the latest version of Fairphone OS using the Fairphone updater
  9. Bonus: Install Firefox (from F-Droid or Play Store) or Chrome ( Play Store) and use them instead of the default browser. Faster and more secure!

If you happen to be in Berlin, you could come to this event to get your Fairphone to be fresh again: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/frischekur-fur-dein-fairphone-1-tickets-19312852261
[1]: https://fairphone.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201134418-How-to-perform-a-Hard-Reset-on-my-Fairphone-1

4

Hi apologies for that. What happens is I try to visit a perfectly legitimate page, and every time I do so a cascade of pages with adult / unsafe content appear. This only happens from my phone.
I installed avast mobile security which blocks the unsafe content but I still can’t visit that page. I also performed a clean up with Avast Clean up.
Apps on my phone (other than those by default on the phone):
Adobe Acrobat
Amazon Kindle
Avast Mobile Security
Avast Cleanup
Barbie Magic
Backgammon free
Chess free
Compass
Deezer
Dropbox
Exactly
Fast Scanner
Hindi phrasebook
Maps.me
IPS News
Office Suite
Pixlr
UB reader
Varnmala

Thanks!
Pixlr

5

Hi Ben, thanks for that it’ really comprehensive. I don’t have enough knowledge to say if my phone is infected. But I’ll try what you suggest.

6

have you tried using a different browser?

7

It hard work, but i good way to be sure you’re phone is not infected.