Received alert on phone corrupted with four viruses download z speed?

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Received alert on phone corrupted with four viruses download z speed

i RECEIVED AN ALERT MY PHONE WAS CORRUPTED BY 4 VIRUSES WHEN ON A MUSIC SITE.
iT SAID ACT QUICKLY FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS DO NOT CLOSE PAGE.
THEN I WAS PROMPTED TO PROTECT THE PHONE BY GOOGLE ANDROID BY DOWNLOADING Z SPEED TO PROTECT THE PHONE AND CLEAN UP FILES.

iT PROMPTED ME TO DELETE DUPLICATE PHOTOS, AND SCANNED JUNK FILES, INCREASING STORAGE SPACE...THEN IT PROMPTED ME TO DRAG INTO HOLE....WHEN I DID FILES STARTED GOING INTO A PICTURE OF VORTEX HOLE...THEN I PANICKED AND UNINSTALLED THE APP...IS IT TOO LATE. DO THEY HAVE ACCESS TO PERSONAL INFO>
 

bs32315

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Re: Received alert on phone corrupted with four viruses download z speed

That was a virus its self. Download trend micro and it should take care of it. Are you can all ways do a master rest on your phone.

Posted via the Android Central App
 

VidJunky

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It's spam. Designed to make you panic and download an app that is either useless or more harmful than anything it's claiming to protect you against. Stay away from anti virus apps they're scams. Android is a sandboxed OS and has a very low risk of infection by virus. I wouldn't download anything and if you're thinking about it Google it first.

Also Google wouldn't out it's name on anything it didn't brand so the claim Google wants you to download this app should be a giant red flag.

As for what you lost and where it went good luck. I probably would do a factory reset and create new passwords for any accounts saved on the device. The reset gets the app off the phone and the password changes help secure you again.

Posted via the Android Central App
 

AlphaTango414

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Re: Received alert on phone corrupted with four viruses download z speed

It's spam. Designed to make you panic and download an app that is either useless or more harmful than anything it's claiming to protect you against. Stay away from anti virus apps they're scams. Android is a sandboxed OS and has a very low risk of infection by virus. I wouldn't download anything and if you're thinking about it Google it first.

Also Google wouldn't out it's name on anything it didn't brand so the claim Google wants you to download this app should be a giant red flag.

As for what you lost and where it went good luck. I probably would do a factory reset and create new passwords for any accounts saved on the device. The reset gets the app off the phone and the password changes help secure you again.

Posted via the Android Central App

Great advice. 👍
 

Mamaopi

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It's spam. Designed to make you panic and download an app that is either useless or more harmful than anything it's claiming to protect you against. Stay away from anti virus apps they're scams. Android is a sandboxed OS and has a very low risk of infection by virus. I wouldn't download anything and if you're thinking about it Google it first.

Also Google wouldn't out it's name on anything it didn't brand so the claim Google wants you to download this app should be a giant red flag.

As for what you lost and where it went good luck. I probably would do a factory reset and create new passwords for any accounts saved on the device. The reset gets the app off the phone and the password changes help secure you again.

Posted via the Android Central App

I just received this message a few minutes ago. Is there something I need to do so this doesn't pop up again?? Glad I didn't click on any of it
 

belodion

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I just received this message a few minutes ago. Is there something I need to do so this doesn't pop up again?? Glad I didn't click on any of it

Welcome. :)

If the pop-up is recurring, try first booting into Safe Mode to test whether a third-party app is responsible. If the pop-ups stop, determine the culprit and uninstall. Clear Cache, Clear Data, and Force Stop before Uninstalling.
That method of dealing with pop-ups is less invasive than clearing browser caches or factory resetting, since you lose nothing, so it's worth trying first.
 

Holly Louise

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Same happened to me today. So, is this spam/virus part of the anti-virus program (in my case, Avast)? Is it a spam/virus coming from Google Play Store itself? (I do not use any other apps except Google and whatever came on the phone from Verizon.) I have now removed Avast as per your comment that AV program is not needed, but I would like to understand where the spam came from, if you might know. I cannot recall for certain, but think I put Avast on the phone because of that same spam panic alert coming up before. It is also possible that the last time I got this was after I updated a bunch of Google apps which I also just did today. Thanks for any additional info on this.
 

VidJunky

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If you removed it (Avast) it wasn't a factory app, so you have been downloading something from the Play Store or other location. Correct? You can trust Google, I say that in general, provided you agree with their terms and conditions and privacy policies. They are not going to do misc things on your device because they want your trust. Anyway not having too many downloaded apps narrows down your risk of issues and also makes finding problem apps easier, than say someone with 100 apps.
 

midonut

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"If the pop-ups stop, determine the culprit and uninstall. Clear Cache, Clear Data, and Force Stop before Uninstalling."

How do you determine which app is at fault?
 

VidJunky

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Re: Received alert on phone corrupted with four viruses download z speed

I tell everyone to go into their app drawer and sort by recent and start with the last 5 apps that were downloaded. Check the one star reviews for each of them and see if anyone mentions the issue you're having. Since their pop-ups and not notification ads airpush won't be able to tell you which one it is but it also looks at permissions so it may guide you a little to apps with crazy permissions. Beyond that you can go to the Play Store and look at your app's list on the installed tab. Start at the top and work your way down first looking at all the apps under 3.5 stars. I've found 3.5 stars to be kind of a sweet spot. Anything under that is shady most things above that are safer. Then like before look at the low reviews, 1 and 2 stars for complaints about your problem. If you happen to not find anything in the 3.5 range look at anything that has as many 5 star reviews as 1 star reviews. If the dev is less than honest they can use 5s to cancel out 1s. They have no reason to fake low reviews so that info will be real and honest. GL
 

Mjnt

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Re: Received alert on phone corrupted with four viruses download z speed

I tell everyone to go into their app drawer and sort by recent and start with the last 5 apps that were downloaded. Check the one star reviews for each of them and see if anyone mentions the issue you're having. Since their pop-ups and not notification ads airpush won't be able to tell you which one it is but it also looks at permissions so it may guide you a little to apps with crazy permissions. GL

What is airpush?
 

VidJunky

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Re: Received alert on phone corrupted with four viruses download z speed

It's an app that was very useful when devs tried to get around placing ads in their apps by pushing them to notification bars. People never knew where the ads were coming from and many of them were quite intrusive. Airpush looked at app permissions and identified any that had permission to use push notifications. Later it looked at all permissions for apps that had excessive permissions and identified them as well. There may be other apps that look at and identify apps with too many or sensitive permissions, I just know Airpush and it's been reliable in the past.
 

AnjolietheRedPikmin

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I downloaded the Summoner's War app (completely safe by best friend's word, even saw her playing on it) and this popup came up. I did not trust it at first, nice to know I had good judgement. However, some say to force stop, etc. bc:- the app may have caused the problem (although it probably wasn't the developer's fault). Any other way to stop it? Maybe I should clean cache, but that's all I'm willing to do. Any help?
 
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belodion

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I downloaded the Summoner's War app (completely safe by best friend's word, even saw her playing on it) and this popup came up. I did not trust it at first, nice to know I had good judgement. However, some say to force stop, etc. bc:- the app may have caused the problem (although it probably wasn't the developer's fault). Any other way to stop it? Maybe I should clean cache, but that's all I'm willing to do. Any help?

Welcome. :)

You could try Safe Mode to test whether the trouble is caused by a third-party app.

You could just Disable a troublesome app, but since you're unlikely to want to keep it, the usual recourse is to be rid of it. In that case, go to Settings, Apps, All, scroll to the app you suspect, select Clear Cache, Clear Data, Force Stop, and Uninstall.
 

Elphie123

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Re: Received alert on phone corrupted with four viruses download z speed

i RECEIVED AN ALERT MY PHONE WAS CORRUPTED BY 4 VIRUSES WHEN ON A MUSIC SITE.
iT SAID ACT QUICKLY FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS DO NOT CLOSE PAGE.
THEN I WAS PROMPTED TO PROTECT THE PHONE BY GOOGLE ANDROID BY DOWNLOADING Z SPEED TO PROTECT THE PHONE AND CLEAN UP FILES.

iT PROMPTED ME TO DELETE DUPLICATE PHOTOS, AND SCANNED JUNK FILES, INCREASING STORAGE SPACE...THEN IT PROMPTED ME TO DRAG INTO HOLE....WHEN I DID FILES STARTED GOING INTO A PICTURE OF VORTEX HOLE...THEN I PANICKED AND UNINSTALLED THE APP...IS IT TOO LATE. DO THEY HAVE ACCESS TO PERSONAL INFO>
 

Elphie123

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I was simply on Google Chrome getting ready to research something. I couldn't get the message to go away, and I wasn't going to click on it. I shut down the phone and turned it back on. As soon as I opened chrome, the message came back. I finally got frustrated, disabled Chrome, and went back to Opera Mini browser. Problem is gone, at least for now.