Q: How do i get rid of a iPhone Virus?

Jamesmeyer wrote:

 

My wife used to have this same problem when her phone was plugged in too. As soon as it was unplugged the behavior went away. I suspect there were inconsistent electrical impulses from the power source that rendered the screen inoperable. This only happened to us when it was plugged in to the car adaptor.

That probably means a cheap or defective car adapter. Car electrical systems are very "noisy", full of spikes and dropouts. A good quality car adapter will filter them out; a cheap one won't.

every time i turn on my iphone5 i get a message "http://mobiupdate.net,,,,IMMEDIADE RESPONSE REQUIRED....  your phone has been exposed to a virus while browsing recent adult-orientated websites.

tap ok to Scan your phone for viruses"

i can accwss all programs except for safari as this message appears.  do i tap ok?

Absolutely not, unless you like scams and identity theft web sites!

What to do:

Settings > Safari > Clear Cookies and Data, Clear History

Settings > Safari > Block Cookies > From third parties and advertisers

                            > Fraudulent Website Warning > ON

I would recommend to complain to Apple and say that you have had some technical problems with your Iphone. Now, if there is a virus apple will have to exchange yours for a new one. But you should just start it as a new iphone. Dont back up from backups. Leave as is.

Sometimes I wish Apple would just delete these threads after they have run their course because I think they do more harm than good. So much hypothesizing from a couple of well intentioned (hopefully) users.

I know it's been a while SuperNMY and you probably have this all straightened out so I am posting this in case someone else comes along who may be having similar issues.

I have seen this very same behavior on my phone. However instead of assuming there was a virus I drew on past experiences to feel at ease about the situation and take corrective action and I am sure that my hunch was correct.

My phone got full and in the background Apple downloaded the IOS update which resulted in even less space available. Like desktop computers there is temp space or swap space used in the course of normal opperation. If the flash drive or the drive on your computer gets too full you can see really strange behaviors. I have seen this many times.

You might even hit several buttons without realzing that each command you were initiating would attempt to run once the phone could catch up but couldn't due to too small of an area to write the commands it had finished using back to disk or to memory (if any was available). So they all ran in sequence making your phone look like it was possessed. With regard to the email getting sent. I have questions for you on that. Do you have a password set on the login screen and if you do, are you POSITIVE no one has ever seen you enter it? That's the most likely explanation. Someone mischieviously sent an email either from your computer or your phone.

So the key question to ask is: "How much storage space is available?" This needs to be one of the first questions you look at during trouble-shooting an issue.

Here is what I did...

1. Went to Settings/Usage/ and checked Storage available. I had 32GB which was nearly full. You will note the spinning circle that indicates it's doing something. Let it finish and it will give you a report on space used by application and how much space each application is using. It will list the applications consuming the most space first. I noted on my device that the first app was a game my daughter was playing and it was unusually large. The first thing I did was to delete that game. After which I closed all apps and power cycled the phone. Response was much better when the phone came back up and I found I could navigate more easily so I went back and started deleting all the stuff that I wasn't using or that was taking up too much space. This included downloading photos and deleting them from the device. (Which is how I roll normally).

2. Look for Apps that use storage space that may not be obvious. Most of them will allow you to move/delete/copy from the Itunes application when you are connected to your Mac. If that's not possible then mail things like recording, PDFs, Photos, etc to an email account or offload them using Phone To Mac or some similar app. There are several and some will even let you do it before you buy the Desktop Application.

Once I had cleaned the phone off of all the unused items I power cycled it again. When the phone came up again it was running great. Commands were executing quickly again. I had to do this same process once more when the IOS 7 update came out because I didn't have enough space to download it. My hunch is that this is what your problem is. You also don't indicate which model of phone you have. If you are trying to run IOS 7 on an iPhone 4, it may not really run well.

That's my .02 cents.

A few thoughts about this thread ... Maybe there aren't virus' for iPhones? I'm not sure about that, but there IS rogue software such as HackingTeam etc. as sold to law enforcement agencies / governments etc. (read NSA) that can and do monitor EVERYTHING inc. GPS, calls, texts, take control your cameras and bug you, read all your email etc.

It is designed that even if you wipe your iPhone for re sale the software is still there - the only way to get rid of it is to actually sell your phone / destroy it and get a physically new one.

Another thought - some of the behaviours described in this thread would seem to be conditional (condition - records your IP address and only shows the pop up the first time you visit the site), mobile only browser injections that are the fault of the website being visited. Turn pop ups off and you won't be bothered by this type of issue.

Maybe there aren't virus' for iPhones? I'm not sure about that, but there IS rogue software such as HackingTeam etc. as sold to law enforcement agencies / governments etc.

The software you're referring to can only be installed on an iPhone by jailbreaking it, and with physical access to the device. There is no known way to remotely install this software. Further, I've seen no indication at all that this software can survive a factory reset.

In the ordinary scheme of things I would agree with you but post "Snowden" I'm not so sure.

HackingTeam DO operate servers in the USA (approx. 60?).

They usually have servers in the target country so that they (and the data they collect) are covered by that country's law.

It stretches my imagination that these servers are only for Android devices in the US.

If the NSA has presented Apple with the appropriate legal order ... then this software IS in the App Store now somewhere disguised as???

Also - and someone please correct me if I'm wrong here - since ios 3?? The factory reset wipes the iPhone's encryption key rather than the actual data then reinstall. It would be trivial for software with unfettered access such as HackingTeam to create a hidden partition and install itself upon each boot - it would seem silly not to do that?

But the NSA would never engineer anything like that - they are our friends!!

Regardless of how many servers they have neither they nor the NSA ever was able to remotely install spyware on the iPhone unless the iiPhone was jailbroken.

The NSA can present a court order to obtain information from them but they cannot get a court order to demand that Apple place spyware on the iPhone or to have an app in the App Store that would do so. Due to the sandboxing of iOS and app would not be able to accomplish this anyway.

DFU mode completely removes the OS from the phone, not just encryption and the HackingTeam still would not be able to add anything to the iPhone unless Apple built it into iOS or the iPhone was jailbroken.

They may not be our "friends" but they do have a mission. And if something goes wrong and a nuclear device gets detonated in the US people will quickly blame the NSA for not stopping it.

Thomas_r;

I was referring to virii. As far as the original post was concerned I was suggesting it was not a virus and that one should assume the most simple explanation and do some investigative work on their own.

Unfortunately our government does in fact have the ability to monitor any phone wireless or not. Even before wireless they've had this capability. There is nothing we can do about this. It's a done deal. It's up to each individual to decide how they feel about that.

If anyone is curious I suggest they read the documents Snowden released. Unfortunately the types of software they may install can and will survive a full wipe and restore as well as a hard reset. This is not paranoia, it's fact. I am not concerned about it. I AM concerned about rogue or irresponsible employees abusing it however because I have observed that it's the more likely scenario.

Snowden never said they could remotely install software onto an iPhone nor did he say anything regarding wiping it.

deggie wrote:

 

Regardless of how many servers they have neither they nor the NSA ever was able to remotely install spyware on the iPhone unless the iiPhone was jailbroken.

 

The NSA can present a court order to obtain information from them but they cannot get a court order to demand that Apple place spyware on the iPhone or to have an app in the App Store that would do so. Due to the sandboxing of iOS and app would not be able to accomplish this anyway.

 

DFU mode completely removes the OS from the phone, not just encryption and the HackingTeam still would not be able to add anything to the iPhone unless Apple built it into iOS or the iPhone was jailbroken.

 

They may not be our "friends" but they do have a mission. And if something goes wrong and a nuclear device gets detonated in the US people will quickly blame the NSA for not stopping it.

Regarding the iPhone needing to be jailbroken. That's a myth. Please read some of the more recent Snowden press releases, interviews, and the most recent technical document that was released. (Please don't ask me to link you to it. It's out there, just do a search. They own iPhones. Period.

Regarding the sandboxing... true unless they have backend access which they do. Spend a little time researching this. It was in one of the articles I read recently and confirmed by second sources.

Yes they do have a mission. Yes they are supposed to get court orders but it has already been shown that hasn't happened in the Verizon and AT&T incidents. They handing the customer data over without a formal court order. Again do some research.

Again responding to their "mission" and a device comment... all elements of F.U.D.

Ok so can we end this discussion already? These forums are to talk about Apple solutions and fixes. Not politics.

Why waste your time on a member of the tin foil hat club.....

No, we can't end it yet. I have read what is out there. The NSA did say they could install an app if they physically had access to the iPhone (and this was back on iOS 5). They were then going to look at doing it remotely. There is absolutely NO evidence they pursued it any further, no evidence that is worked on later versions and Apple has categorically denied that ANY NSA software was placed on the iPhone and that they DID NOT give the NSA to any backend access.

Anything you are stating is not based on research it is based on pure speculation.

deggie wrote:

 

Snowden never said they could remotely install software onto an iPhone nor did he say anything regarding wiping it.

Like I said. Within the last month there was a document released that was a list of the "services" they could perform. iPhone was on it. This was not something Snowden said. It was listed on that document.