Clicked on phishing email on iPhone

While checking email on my iPhone 8 I foolishly clicked on a realistic looking U.S. Postal Service email saying there'd been a problem with a package delivery. Since I receive daily emails from the USPS Informed Delivery service I clicked without taking a moment to consider the red flags. I confess, even on the fake website I filled out a form with another email address and my home address and phone number! (Insert "The Scream" emoji here.)


I soon realized it was a scam but maybe too late. I stopped and exited the site before clicking on a confirmation button. Besides the fact they may now have whatever info I entered, however, I googled this scam and found sites saying that once you click, they automatically gain access to private info on the phone and can download malware. Is it possible to get malware on my iPhone from clicking on this phishing site? If so, how do I get rid of it? What should I do to make sure the phone's OK?


Thanks.

iPhone 8

Posted on Oct 8, 2022 6:33 PM

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7 replies

Oct 9, 2022 8:32 PM in response to ISOHelp

scumware.org is one of many malware lists and lists u4466664.ct.sendgrid.net as being infected with Win32/Kryptik.GQWV trojan.

That won’t affect you because it’s a Windows trojan. As long as your phone is not jail broken it’s actually very difficult to install trojans on iOS. Even if a malware writer can get past the review process masquerading as a valid app, once discovered, Apple can pull it from the app store and disable it on your phone. This is the benefit of the “walled garden” and single app store that some people complain about. For any of the known remote execution vulnerabilities, which exploit vulnerabilities in apps like Safari, there are patches, and remediation would be to install the updates. So I’d say install the latest updates and sleep easy knowing you are on about the most secure phone and platform you can be on, taking the usual precautions of course around entering personal details and sensitive information like passwords and payment details

Oct 8, 2022 7:05 PM in response to ISOHelp

It's hard to answer very specifically without more detail, but generally speaking, if your iOS was up to date at the time, then you have a much higher likelihood of being protected than if you haven't been keeping iOS up to date.

It's not actually that easy to find a vulnerability yourself, so typically malware writers will target known vulnerabilities, that have been fixed, knowing there will be a percentage of people who do not install the updates, leaving them vulnerable. So as long as you have installed the updates, you're much less likely to be vulnerable.


If you found information about CVE numbers that the particular malware site you Googled exploits, you can search for the CVE Id at https://cve.mitre.org/cve/search_cve_list.html and find when it was fixed and if it was fixed in your version of iOS. For example https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2022-32912 was fixed in iOS 16, iOS 15.7 and iPadOS 15.7

You can also check what vulnerabilities were fixed from the Apple Security updates page Apple security updates – Apple Support (AU)


Without more specific information about the email, and the site you went to, it's hard to answer more specifically.

Oct 8, 2022 7:45 PM in response to synonym

Thanks. How would I find the CVE for the website? When I hover over the link on the email the site seems to be several numbers followed by ct.sendgrid.net. Unfortunately I didn't update to the latest available iOS version, 15.7, before clicking on that site. (I'm usually very careful and have good phishing radar but my guard was down this time.)

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Clicked on phishing email on iPhone

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