Can my phone save malicious files without me clicking anything?

[orangecc]

Hello everyone at Android Central. I am in Japan and have a Galaxy 6. Sorry if my message is long... I don't know much about phones so I will try and explain.

If I visit a malicious website by mistake, is it possible for my phone to download files without me clicking anything?

I will explain what happened.
I was reading an article on an English-language fashion website (Racked.com) and clicked a link in the article, thinking it was the website for a small makeup company. However, when I clicked the link, a new window opened in my browser with a weird black page with white text that said I had a virus and that I should download their software. All the text was in Japanese. (Don't worry, I thought it was suspicious so I didn't click anything!)

Anyway, as soon as that weird black page loaded in my browser, several small white boxes/windows appeared one after the other, and appeared to look like my phone was downloading files. What I mean is, the little white windows/boxes had messages in Japanese that said 'Downloading file h00001...' ''Installing file h0001...' and had a black/gray percentage gauge that grew from 1% to 100%. This was very quick and seemed to imply that three or four files were saved to my phone in a matter of seconds. It looked very real, similar to the white boxes that normally say 'This app was uninstalled', etc.

All of this happened very, very quickly, within 5 seconds. I panicked and closed my browser. I turned off my internet and data connection. I reopened the browser and it was the same black website and it showed the 'downloading file .... ' animation again for one second before the browser page changed to that familiar screen of 'Cannot find internet connection.'

I am worried that the evil website saved malicious files to my phone. What do you think?

My question is: is it physically possible for Android phones to download files without me, the user, clicking a button to 'save' them?

Usually when I download photos or PDFs from the internet a little 'down arrow' appears at the top of my phone's screen, and the file appears in my Downloads folder. However, this time, thankfully, there was no little 'down arrow', no notification, and no new files in my Download folder. However, I am worried the files were hidden somewhere on my phone.

Thank you for reading my long message. I will sincerely appreciate any help or advice!

 

[Mooncatt]

I wouldn't be extremely worried, but I would try some legit antivirus apps to scan the phone just in case. Usually these sorts of sites just pop up fake virus detected messages and generic animations to make you think you have something infecting you, to trick you into buying their equally fake software to clear it. There is no built in virus detection in Android, a website cannot just randomly scan your entire system in an instant (this takes several minutes at least with real antivirus software), and legit antivirus apps will have their own methods of notifying you properly.

What these sites do would be no different than me, a complete stranger, walking up to you and telling you that your phone is infected and that I'll fix it for a fee.

 

[orangecc]

Thank you Mooncatt for your response. Yes, I was worried that the website had saved files to my Android phone.

Thank you again!

I wouldn't be extremely worried, but I would try some legit antivirus apps to scan the phone just in case. Usually these sorts of sites just pop up fake virus detected messages and generic animations to make you think you have something infecting you, to trick you into buying their equally fake software to clear it. There is no built in virus detection in Android, a website cannot just randomly scan your entire system in an instant (this takes several minutes at least with real antivirus software), and legit antivirus apps will have their own methods of notifying you properly.

What these sites do would be no different than me, a complete stranger, walking up to you and telling you that your phone is infected and that I'll fix it for a fee.