The virus in the photo

votae wrote:

then what should i do?

I’d suggest either ceasing use of VT, or learning how to use it, and learning its benefits, limits, and issues.

I had suggested the latter approach above. Research the report, and determine if it’s spurious. A single report of (for instance) some random Windows malware from, say, 2015, is almost certainly spurious detection in the context of an iPhone.

Otherwise, if you don’t want to learn more about all this stuff, ignore it, and cease using VT.

False positives are common, as anti-malware tends to be yappy (that’s part of its charm, and is also central to its self-marketing), and too many of the anti-malware packages have issues with security, and privacy, and detection errors, and with overblown and overhyped announcements and advertising.

Security is never an absolute. One of the few certainties: increasing security involves usability trade-offs. Add-on anti-malware and detection tools on Apple platforms tend to be noise generators too, given the built-in mechanisms*, and given the lack of reports here and elsewhere past (for instance) JBIG2. Does malware exist for iPhone and iPad? Sure. Is one detection report from VT anything? Research it. Decide.

*one add-on anti-malware package for macOS was recently trying to delete part of macOS, due to a mis-detection. Built-in macOS anti-malware then blocked the file deletion attempt, and which kept functional the Macs with that anti-malware app loaded.

votae wrote:

I'm afraid that I downloaded a photo from the Google gallery that had a virus. I scanned it on virustotal and it came up with a virus. I restored the phone to factory settings. Am I at risk?

That’s an interesting sequence.

There are both false positives, and false negatives possible here, and in general.

Given you’re already aware of VT, use that to look into the issue with this particular report, and with this particular (alleged) malware, and determine what issues might arise with this particular malware or with this particular errant mis-detection (of nothing) might involve.

KiltedTim wrote:

There are no known viruses in the wild that can infect an iOS device that has not been jailbroken.

There is iOS malware around. Some of the earlier and since remediated malware used images as part of its exploit chain, too. The JBIG2 “weird machine” exploit is some fascinating stuff.

Windows viruses can not infect an iphone, ipad, or Mac.

Multi-platform exploits are rare, yes. Far more rare than are false detections, which is what I suspect this is, but that would involve doing more research with VT and with whatever that anti-malware app is reporting with that (mis?)detection.

KiltedTim wrote:

There are no known viruses in the wild that can infect an iOS device that has not been jailbroken.

Windows viruses can not infect an iphone, ipad, or Mac.

I agree. If people install unnecessary antivirus apps they get the results that they deserve.

I have never ever had any malware on any Apple product except for one I accidentally installed myself in a bogus Flash alert. It is not just good luck.

All this app has done is unnecessarlly worried user votae

That was not what I suggested.

There are no known viruses in the wild that can infect an iOS device that has not been jailbroken.

Windows viruses can not infect an iphone, ipad, or Mac.