How can I stop a weird pop up?

[Robert Szepietowski]

weird pop up

While reading an article, following pop up came up on the screen "The page at android.lockbooster.com says: Your generic android 5.1.1 has been blocked because a DDOS attack occurred from your phone. It is possibly infected with a virus. If the problem is not fixed, the internet connection will be blocked" and phone started vibrating. The phone in question is moto x pure 2015 on ATT. The website was android central and I opened from Google now link. Anybody has any idea what is going on?

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: weird pop up

Welcome to Android Central! That sounds like a bogus popup ad designed to scare you into installing some bogus "security" app, which may be malicious in itself. DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK. Are you certain it was the Android Central | Android Forums, News, Reviews, Help and Android Wallpapers website? There are a couple of poser sites out there. Sometimes, just a subtle misspelling can take you to a shady site.

Does this happen if you just type in that URL directly into your browser, instead of clicking the Google Now link?

 

[smedrick]

I received a similar pop-up while browsing Reddit on the Sync app. Same message, although it referenced my Nexus 6. No link, just an OK button. I was able to disregard it by switching focus. Perhaps it was triggered via a GIFV?

 

[Robert Szepietowski]

Re: weird pop up

I am sorry, the pop up came out while I was reading android authority. I opened the story from google now. When I went to clear running aps next day, the chrome page had following address android.lockbooster.com and had link to download some antivirus app. I did not download it. Cleared recent apps and as well as cache on chrome. So far there are no issues, so I hope situation resolved itself. Thanks for responses.

 

[TheButler1]

Re: weird pop up

This happened to me just a few hours ago. The pop up actually had a timer on it counting down from 2min. The site it happened on I had been on it almost all day. I've cleared my cache and closed out that window, I just hope no info has been stolen.

 

[Robert Szepietowski]

Re: weird pop up

This happened to me just a few hours ago. The pop up actually had a timer on it counting down from 2min. The site it happened on I had been on it almost all day. I've cleared my cache and closed out that window, I just hope no info has been stolen.

It looks that nothing was affected so far. Lets hope it stays that way.

 

[bananagunz]

These are the same as any other annoying "Your android device(sometimes the specific name of your phone or android version) has detected xx viruses, follow blah blah blah to remove them" which will likely end up with you downloading something.

I received a similar message with a google header(the same one you receive if you get a 404 error) except the link was clearly some nonsense ad hosting site. Now with HTML5 the ads can also gain control of the vibrate motor in your phone causing it to seem like they have somehow penetrated your phone and gained unauthorized access. Which is unlikely.

The only reason you should be worried about this is if you downloaded any content or apps from these or any other untrusted sites opening you up to malicious software. Needless to say you should never follow a popup. In fact it is good practice to just close it as soon as it opens and download a trusted antivirus app if you want to take a popup's words at face value and check for the viruses they've supposedly detected.

Interestingly enough something like 1 in 5 mobile devices today are infected with some kind of malicious software, though no random popup would be able to detect that in the time it takes for a webpage to load.

Conclusion:
These popups are more an annoyance than anything. If you have a rooted device ad the popups domain to your host file and call it a day. You'll likely receive the sane popup from various different domains so just keep adding them to an already populated up to date host file and it should block a majority of these "virus detected" popups.

If you are really worried, back up any personal data to a cloud service and hard reset your device and format any external memory.