new mail account "Senior Discount Box" showed up, can't delete

sberman wrote:

A "profile" means some other organization has some IT policy in effect that governs the iPhone. In other words, your friend must not own the iPhone outright ... it probably belongs to some organization or school that has an IT department that governs it. You should contact them about this email account.

A point of clarification. Just because there is a profile on the phone doesn't mean the person doesn't own it. I have a profile on my phone which I own outright because I needed it to install an app from my employer to view my schedule. Some companies allow people to put corporate email on personal phones but require a profile. I've also seen people who've used SIMS from certain companies that sell them for international travel with profiles installed on the phone. I only discovered that because the people couldn't access cellular data when they got back until the profile was removed.

Yes, allowing a profile on your phone means you're ceding some level of control but it doesn't mean much of anything about ownership of the device.

thaw3 wrote:

Thanks for the clarification. In this instance, some entity from a website or an email installed the profile without my girlfriend's permissio. How this can happen I don't quite understand.

I've been seeing that happen slighty more often. It's always been a way to get apps installed without the usual iTunes Store security. I'm guessing someone clicked on a link about installing an app or something similar and then clicked "ok" on the request to install a profile. We've all gotten so used to just clicking through things like that that we don't always read them.

Delete the profile. Be careful, in future, when clicking "Ok" that you pay attention.

Best of luck.

I also had this show up. I was checking my email accounts and noticed an inbox for Senior Discount. When I went to my mail settings I found that the email account was traced to someone else. sh#$@@@t.!! It's my fault. I probably installed it when I ok'ed a wifi security certificate. This is very nasty. I don't know how much info the hack was able to obtain. I have to change everything now.

I don't believe these profiles are that sinister. It's not generally seen as a hack.

More like adware or malware... an annoyance for sure, but your data is not at risk unless you volunteer it.

Due to how secure iOS has been proven to be, the "bad guys" have to trick the data out of you, as they can't dig for it on your device.

I've seen some that do not nothing but hijack all your Google searches and send them to other search engines. Or direct your searches at abc.com to xyz.com instead.

LACAllen wrote:

I don't believe these profiles are that sinister. It's not generally seen as a hack.

Profiles can do things like access your contacts and calendar, enforce a passcode, prevent the use of the camera and all sorts of other things. Some people might find that very sinister. While it may not be the equivalent of giving someone the keys to your safe deposit box, you've certainly let them in the front door and let them wander around the house unattended.

Thanks, I had this happen this morning, just went to profile and deleted.

Jane

Thanks everyone! Same thing happened to me w/senior ...I had no idea!

TThis just happened to me by senior discount box and coupon box, I need to go back now and follow directions on how to delete them. I had signed up to try to find some coupons for shopping and was shocked to see they were added to my email accounts and furious that I was not able to delete them, hopefully I will be able to follow instructions above and get rid of them, there are three in total. That is just so rude that they were able to do this.

TThanks that was really easy, all 3 showed up in profiles and I deleted all of them, thanks so much, I feel a lot better but I am still shocked that they were able to do that without my knowledge. I will be more careful in the future.

thanks again!

Not that it makes it OK... but somewhere in the link that you followed was something approaching a request for your permission.

One must be very careful and read every word of every link you click on.

The same thing has happened to me. My phone battery has been draining since then though. I've been trying to figure out what has changed. I discovered this mail account from Senior Discount Box that has NO delete button on it. Also, some of my notes seem to be missing with important information which I tried to put there "incognito" of sorts. I suppose nothing is safe in any form though. I'm still trying to delete the mail account. I wonder if it needs to be reported as fraud. Seniors may be getting their privacy stripped away by trusting a Discount Coupon distributor preying on the "Senior" goldmine, whether it's financial or their personal lives. It's not up for grabs.

Profiles can be installed for several purposes, not all of them corporate owned phones or malware. An example is BrightHouse Networks (BHN), which offers to subscribers a "more secure" VPN connection to their hotspots, as opposed to the usual public hotspots (which they also offer). In order to use the VPN functionality, you must install a BrightHouse utility to your phone, which in turn installs a profile with your keys as recognized by BHN. Since BrightHouse is associated with RoadRunner and TimeWarnerCable, this is likely to be used by other RR and/or TWC related ISPs.

AWESOME

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

I WAS HELPING SOMEONE WITH THIS ISSUE AND WAS JUST ABOUT TO HAVE HER CONTACT THE WEBSITE FOR HELP WHEN I READ THIS POST AND JUST LIKE THAT, ISSUE IS RESOLVED.