![\"Figure](\"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/fake_virus_android.png\")
<\/a>Figure 1. Oh noes!<\/p><\/div>\n
Without hesitation, I pressed the Home button on my Samsung phone and escaped from whatever the hell was taking over the screen. (The red bar you see in Figure 1 animates.)<\/p>\n
I pressed the Recent icon and swiped away all my web browser app pages from the Overview. Then I went in and looked at the phone, checking the data connection and reviewing all my apps to ensure that nothing went awry.<\/p>\n
Phone viruses are very, very rare. Even more rare is the warning you’d see if your phone was infected. What’s shown in Figure 1 isn’t a virus or an app; it’s a web page — a very clever web page that fools people into giving away their hard-earned money.<\/p>\n
Officially, this type of thing is known as a phishing scam. Right now, iOS users are being duped by such a scheme. The web page takes over the screen and looks like an app. It requests that you click a button or dial a number to immediately (and often at “no charge”) remove the virus. Innocent dupes phone the number and gladly offer their credit card, which is charged for services not necessary.<\/p>\n
The advice being given to iOS users is to place their phones into Airplane Mode, which immediately terminates all the device’s wireless radios. That’s a safe move, but honestly if your phone is infected with something, it’s already in there and switching off the Wi-Fi won’t get rid of it.<\/p>\n
Further, it’s nearly impossible for a web page to load anything nasty into your phone. The web browser’s security settings prevent such a thing from happening.<\/p>\n
For your Android, setting Airplane Mode isn’t necessary. If you see a screen such as the one shown above, press the Home navigation icon, then the Recent icon. Swipe away the web page and you’re done.<\/p>\n
Later, on my desktop computer, I reviewed Chrome’s web page history from my phone. I was able to bring up the website that claimed my phone was infected. In fact, the screenshot you see in Figure 1 is from my computer, not the phone. So the web page is a scam from the get-go, but still it may frighten you into doing something stupid. Don’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beware of the scam!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-7614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","tag-android"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7614"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7623,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7614\/revisions\/7623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}