Bogus virus alert on iPhone 16e with iOS 18.3.1

I’m screenshotting this.

I very sincerely doubt any such thing actually happened. It's far, far more plausible it was a video in the fake ad made to look like files were being copied.

Did you see this on a particular web site? If so, which one?

The advertisement lied about the scan, then lied about the virus, and, well, lied.

The advertisement that lied about that worked well though, because you’re here, asking about an advertisement that lied about the scan and lied about the virus, well, three, or five, or a billion trillion viruses, because the advertisement that lied about the scan and lied about the virus used a word that scares you: VIRUS.

HACKER and DARK WEB are some other popular scare words.

There is malware that exists for iPhone yes, but — if the advertisement that lied to you about scanning and then lied to you about the virus had access to that sort of (expensive!) malware, the advertisement that lied to you about the scan and lied to you about the virus would not have needed to lie about the scan and then lied about the virus.

Further, had the advertisement been able to even conduct the claimed scan, it would have just ripped off everything, as scans are deeply intrusive operations, operations prohibited of even local apps. So even the “scan” claim itself is, well, problematic.

It’s also generally exceedingly difficult to prove a negative; to prove that some complex device is not compromised.

Yes, I’m hammering on the word “lie” there, because lies can be pernicious, and because repeating the lies works.

Nine28timer wrote:

Kurt or MRHoffman , only after I clicked on the cancel button on the virus page did I see what appeared to be file transfers

Is there any positive way to determine if any files are on my phone?

Again, you got lied to.

Ah, well.

Just go buy the completely unnecessary and privacy-sucking garbage app that the garbage advertisement wants to sell you.

The scammers that lied to you about the scan and that lied about the virus are probably advertising an add-on “coffee shop” VPN app, an app that badly solves a problem that hasn’t existed for a decade, but badly solves it in a way perfect for collecting personally-identified network metadata.

And a VPN app has exactly nothing to do with the bogus virus detection claims that the advertisement lied about.

As I stated above, there is basically no way to prove a complex device is not compromised. That discussion is a very deep well of “but what if [some-yet-ever-more-expensive-exploit] happened?” concerns. Unanswerable.

If the built-in iPhone anti-malware hasn’t detected anything, you’re either not a target for what malware is around, or you’re far outside the realm of what help can be offered here; an immensely valuable target of an immensely wealthy adversary. But this was an advertisement, and not a scam scan, and not a virus. Probably an advertisement for an app you don’t need, and that doesn’t even solve the claimed scan claimed to find. And lied about.

Scams like these go out by the millions every single day.

There isn't anything on your phone. The text is nothing but a lie.

Ignore and delete.