I got an alert on my iPhone twice in the last few days. It says "Apple Security Alert - 9 viruses have been detected on your iPhone. Now IOS is damaged 72%..." There's an OK which I didn't click, but I couldn't do anything with the phone other than turn it off to make the alert go away. Any recommendation? Thanks!
iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 26
There is no virus on your phone. Apple will never send a message or alert like this.
The message that you received is a scam that is trying to trick you into buying useless software to fix a problem that does not exist.
Delete the message or ignore the alert and keep working.
There is no virus on your phone. Apple will never send a message or alert like this.
The message that you received is a scam that is trying to trick you into buying useless software to fix a problem that does not exist.
Delete the message or ignore the alert and keep working.
If you saw that fake message while browsing the web with Safari, the website that is promoting that Ad intentionally did not provide any close button, but you can still navigate to a different page in Safari using the Address Bar. If you close Safari when that page is on the screen, then it will still be there when you open Safari again until you go to a different page. That is default behavior for Safari to return to the last visited page. There is no need to shut your phone down in that case.
Also be aware that some third party apps/games you play on your phone may also include Ads if the developer chooses to monetize their development in that way, often times when they are not charging the user at all. You are still able to close the app in this case though without requiring a restart.
Please remove CleanMyMac from your computer using their uninstaller before you run into any of the problems reported by others here. You just need to use the Search option on the top of the page and enter "CleanMyMac" to understand why it is called "BrickMyMac" around here. Some have had to completely wipe their computer and start fresh again due to the damage it had caused.
If not while browsing the web, then it is one of the Ads seen while using a third party app that is Ad supported. There are a handful of Ad Networks that Developers use to display Ads, so many times the same will be seen across different apps. The alert did not come from Apple through any sort of check on your device. There are also many different variations of the same Ad saying you have a virus, where the whole purpose is to get you to download some other software that you do not need. That is how they try and convince you that there is a problem that only a particular antivirus app/subscription can solve.
Thank you for your replies. I only mentioned CleanMyMac because maybe there would be something for an iPhone. I'm not having any problems with my computer (thank goodness). About the fake alert, no, I was not browsing the web when it happened. I know 2 other iPhone users who got the same alert. I guess at this point nothing can be done other than ignore it. Thank you!
I got that. I know that it wasn't from Apple. The fact that I had to shut down my phone is what bugs me. I couldn't just delete it. Is there anything we can get to protect the phone? I have CleanMyMac for the computer.
Delete CleanMyMac using the uninstaller for the application. It does nothing useful, and is probably one of the worse things that you can do to your Mac.
Post over in the MacBook, iMac, etc support sites if you need confirmation from the experts on this.
If you were visiting a website when the virus "message" appeared, you should know that the website was paid to display the scam "message". That tells you something about the site.
Virus alert on my iPhone
