Clicked on virus link on iPhone

Yeah, it’s an advertisement.

There’s no malware here, and no virus.

This particular advertisement offering you some sketchy app that badly solves a problem you don't have too, but badly solves it in a way perfect for collecting personally-identified metadata.

And no, websites cannot scan your iPhone. If websites could do that, the scammers wouldn’t go to all this effort and subterfuge to get at your data and your metadata, they’d just upload your data directly—malware scans are deeply intrusive.

As for clearing Safari, if force-closing and re-opening Safari while offline and closing all tabs before going back online doesn’t clear this advertisement, contact whoever is holding the restrictions.

Malware for iPhone does exist, but it’s been rare and very targeted based on all available evidence. This stuff is an advertisement. An annoyingly persistent one.

Both of those links / pages / pop-ups that you saw were fake and are designed to scare to scare you into buying useless software such as VPN software etc. Close all the tabs in Safari and you will be fine. Try and stay away from those websites that have pop-ups such as the ones that you faced.

Axel F.

cuteronniekitty wrote:

Hello, while browsing the internet on my other iPhone (iPhone 12, iOS 17.4.1) I accidentally clicked a link that led me to the message that my phone had a lot of viruses and I need to download something to remove them.

Sleazy advertisement, or outright scam. Criminals like to send people messages like this, complete with "helpful" "tech support" phone numbers to call. The phone numbers connect you to the criminals, who are waiting eagerly for the chance to rip you off.

Sometimes they "only" try to get you to pay for a worthless app that you don't need – but even if the rip off stops there, it is still a rip off.

Those are fakes alerts! None Apple devices can get virus , just clean up safari history and you don’t worry about viruses