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I accidentally opened a malicious email with my iPhone. Are there any specific precautions/actions I should take?

I awoke one morning and in my "still not awake" state, I checked my email on my iPhone to find a "your deposit was rejected" email in my inbox. Having deposited a check online the night before, and still not completely conscious, I opened the email and clicked the link to the bank statement. Had my eyes not been blurry and I was actually awake I would have realized earlier that this was neither my bank nor that sneaky of an attempt to get me to click on the link. I realized about 3 seconds after clicking on the link that this was malicious, closed the mail app, closed safari, cleared the cookies and closed all tabs, deleted the email from the inbox and trash.


Is there any danger of this foolish mistake migrating to my MBP? Is there anything more that I should do to avoid this becoming a larger security breach?


I appreciate all answers.

iPhone 4, iOS 5.0.1

Posted on Nov 17, 2011 6:09 PM

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8 replies

Nov 17, 2011 6:42 PM in response to diehardferret

I don't know, but if they have your email address, they can sell it to spammers. But I think we're all smart enough to deal with spammers in our own way. After all, there shouldn't be too many users today who fall for Colonel Juan's email saying he has $50,000,000 he needs to move out of his country and would you help.

Nov 17, 2011 6:31 PM in response to diehardferret

There is an antivirus app in Apple's ios app store. It is from Intego. It will not scan your ios device, but it will scan the attachment that you found on your email and if it is malicious then the scan should identify it and give you the option to safely delete or quarantine it. You have to use your finger or a stylus to select what you want it to scan. You just press down on what you want it to scan and don't let go, and then it launches and quickly scans that one item. This is useful to make sure you don't spread it to other people more so than protecting your own device, I've heard, as the ios devices are already fairly safe.


I have the Intego app and can vouch that it is easy to use. I scanned a few pdf files I saved on my iPhone 4 and they were clean.


If you are worried about your Mac, I recommend trying ESET antivirus for Mac. It is light on resources and does not cause any problems, whereas most other antivirus software programs are notorious for causing problems on the Mac. I've had ESET since June on my iMac and haven't had any problems, and it does not slow down my Mac or hog resources.

Nov 17, 2011 6:14 PM in response to diehardferret

If you're worried about a virus, there are none on Apple devices/computers. Device apps are sandboxed (and now, applications from the Apple Mac App Store are/will be also). This means one virus cannot sabotage another app's space. However, the web site may now have your email address and other info. They might try to use that in some way.

Nov 17, 2011 6:36 PM in response to wildernesshike

The only time you need to worry about a virus on the mac is when you have a dual boot setup where you can boot into windows. There you definitely need antivirus. The other situation is when an email contains an infected attachment and you want to avoid forwarding it to other people . But your mac will be safe. Other than that, buying antivirus for the mac is a waste of money.

Nov 17, 2011 6:45 PM in response to pvonk

Thanks - thats what I figured. Especially since it couldn't force the iphone to download anything (and it was probably aiming for a windows machine in the first place)


What other information do you think they were able to scrape?


Edit: I hadn't seen the other posts when I started replying: It wasn't an email with an attachment, just a link to what was probably a phishing website. And I don't really think iPhone security software is necessary but I appreciate your input.

Nov 17, 2011 6:43 PM in response to pvonk

As someone who accidentally forwarded a virus to someone from a PC years ago, I wanted to reduce the chances that I might do that from even a relatively safe Mac. So, I installed ESET. Considering the fact that ESET does not cause any problems, I don't consider that a waste of money. And considering that the original poster says he is worried, this might provide some peace of mind.

Nov 17, 2011 6:55 PM in response to pvonk

Yeah, my spam blocker is usually pretty good which is why this caught me off guard. Thanks for your help.



@Wildernesshike: Thanks for the suggestion of ESET. I just remembered I had downloaded a Symantec Endpoint Protection that my University owns a distributable student license for a while back and now have it scanned.



I don't normally sound like such a newbie but I'll admit I just wasn't certain what, if any, malicious cookies could be transfered from iPhone to Mac. With malicious Mac code being a bit more common than "never", I decided to err on the side of caution.


Thanks for everyone's input.

I accidentally opened a malicious email with my iPhone. Are there any specific precautions/actions I should take?

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