Hidden files I didn't even download?

[AC Question]

I have a Galaxy s5. I looked at my files and saw random pdfs, excels and notes & I didn't even know where they came from. I read a note or something that contains urls of porn sites that I never visited in my life. Is my phone hacked or something & how can I fully manage and disable random files coming in my device? I have ES File Explorer, but it's hard to look and delete every single one of them.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Where are you finding these files? Are they in the Downloads folder, or somewhere else? Does anyone else have access to your phone? Have you noticed any popup ads while surfing the web? If so, do you recall clicking on any links in those popups?

 

[anon9328411]

Welcome to Android Central! Where are you finding these files? Are they in the Downloads folder, or somewhere else? Does anyone else have access to your phone? Have you noticed any popup ads while surfing the web? If so, do you recall clicking on any links in those popups?

I found it in My Files > Documents. No one else uses my phone. I frequently download movies online so maybe it came from there? If it's a bug or a virus, any ideas how to get rid of it?

 

[B. Diddy]

Where are you downloading movies? Is it a legitimate site? If you're downloading movies that were copied and posted inappropriately (i.e, pirated), then there is a very high risk of malware. And, of course, it's not good to support piracy.

 

[anon9328411]

Where are you downloading movies? Is it a legitimate site? If you're downloading movies that were copied and posted inappropriately (i.e, pirated), then there is a very high risk of malware. And, of course, it's not good to support piracy.

I get them from Primewire.ag. Everyone says it's a safe site.

 

[B. Diddy]

Might not be completely safe: Google Safe Browsing diagnostic page for primewire.ag

 

[anon9328411]

Do you know how I can detect a malware + get rid of it? Can malware detecting apps really detect one?

 

[B. Diddy]

There are a number of security apps available, like Malwarebytes, Lookout, AVG, and Avast, just to name a few. If one of them doesn't find anything, another one might. But you might not have actual malware--you might just be getting these other files downloaded when you download the movies. Malware has to be actually installed by you, so as long as you never accepted any kind of app installation from that website, it's unlikely you have an actual malware app installed. I would delete all of those odd files and either avoid the site, or do the following test: make sure the documents directory is clear of unwanted files, wait a few days, then download a movie from that site. Then check the documents directory again. If you have more unwanted files, then it's the website that's the culprit. If you don't see the unwanted files, keep checking after each subsequent download, since it might not happen each time.

 

[anon9328411]

Thanks very much!

 

[Rukbat]

1) Lookout on a Samsung will kill the battery in a short time. (It's a bug in Lookout caused by something non-standard in Samsung phones they're fixing, but it's not fixed yet - according to them.)

2) You CAN install malware just by visiting some sites. But the files you describe, other than the porn links (unless you visited a legitimate site that had links to porn sites) sound more like files you actually did download (and wanted to) without realizing it. When you go the a site where the URL ends in .pdf, you're downloading a pdf file. When you look at a site whose URL ends in .xls, you're downloading an Excel file. Etc. Your phone (or computer - it works the same on any web-connected device) can't display what it hasn't downloaded, except for streams, which it just doesn't save.

 

[B. Diddy]

Good to know about Lookout. When I used to use it on my Nexus devices, it never showed up in the battery stats, so it was definitely easy on the battery for those devices.

Rukbat, what's the state of affairs with "drive-by" Android malware? I had thought it was still pretty much a non-issue, or at least exceedingly rare.