Has my Lenovo m8 Android 10 Chrome tablet been infiltrated?

[Android Central Question]

I was on a website to which I have a monthly subscription. A large pop-up box appeared covering approx 40% of the screen. The webpage articles were under the box, but were less clear. It happened 4x in a couple minutes.

The box asked me to update my credit card info... Name, address, card number, etc. It showed the last 4 digits of "my" card and the expiration date. Both of which were wrong.

I told the website owner what happened and asked if they'd been hacked. Their full time tech guy said they haven't been hacked.

Do I need to download some kind of virus software to clean my tablet? Thank you!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! This kind of thing is typically a browser popup ad. The site most likely wasn't hacked, but if they have ads on their site, it may be hard for them to vet every single ad that's on that network. If you absolutely need to use that site, then you might consider using a browser that has a built-in ad blocker, like Samsung Internet or Brave.

Please register on this forum, which will allow you to engage in discussion more easily, as well as post images. https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[ws11]

To B.Diddy, I posted the above question. Please note that the site has zero pop-up ads for subscribers. And they only have a few in-house pop-ups for non-subscribers. Please advise...

 

[ws11]

...and I was logged in as a subscriber when the pop-ups occurred.

 

[B. Diddy]

In that case, it could be due to some app you installed. See if this helps: Full screen ads. How to find the culprit. - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com

 

[ws11]

To B.Diddy.. I read your "how to find the culprit article". ZOOM was my only recent download. I just uninstalled it as I don't need it anymore. All my other apps are harmless...e.g., Skype, a very reputable VPN, some reputable banks, Gmail, Google, etc.

Ok, the problem hasn't reoccurred. But my concern is that the pop-up was trying to steal my identity and credit card info. So there's something evil going on. Of course I would never give info to an unfamiliar pop-up, but my question is: Do I need to download something from the Google play store to clean up any viruses, etc.? Thank you!

 

[B. Diddy]

No, I wouldn't bother to install 3rd party antivirus apps. Those tend to be resource hogs, and the less reputable ones may also contain adware or worse.

This is my guide on avoiding malware: [GUIDE] How To Avoid Malware - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com. If you follow those guidelines, you should be quite safe.

Do you recall if you had any other browser tabs open at the time of that popup? You might have been working on that trusted website, but if you had some other website open in another browser tab and that one had ads, then that might be the cause.

 

[ws11]

To B.Diddy...

I read your "how to avoid malware" guide above.

Also, I always have several other tabs on my Chrome browser ready to be clicked on. It would be very inconvenient not to have them handy. And some have pop-ups.

No, I wasn't interested in a 3rd party antivirus app. I thought you might suggest the one-time use of an app to search for, and eliminate any harmful things on my tablet... If such a thing exists.

Unless you think the "credit card info stealing" pop-up wouldn't still be a threat to the integrity of my tablet.

Please let me know. Thank you!

 

[B. Diddy]

It doesn't hurt to install a well-respected antivirus app and run it once. I suggest Malwarebytes. You can always uninstall it afterwards.

If you have other sites open in other Chrome tabs, it's possible one of those was responsible for the popup. You could try process of elimination and keep those sites closed one by one to see if the popups persist.

 

[mustang7757]

Which website was this ?

 

[ws11]

To mustang7757....

It's a relatively small informational site that debits my credit card monthly. As I wrote above, the site has zero pop-up ads for subscribers. And they only have a few in-house pop-ups for non-subscribers. I was logged in when the pop-ups occurred.

Thus they already have my credit card info, so they don't need to create a pop-up ad to steal my credit card info. They have a full-time tech guy who told me that they weren't hacked.

Please let me know if you can add anything to B.Diddy's wise comments. Thank you.

 

[ws11]

To B.Diddy...

The pop-up hasn't reoccurred.

I installed Malwarebytes and used it and then uninstalled it. It said no malware was found. It did find a couple of critical and noncritical issues, which it didn't describe, but reportedly resolved them.

It concluded that "your device is safe".

2 questions please...

1) lt said it scanned a little over 200 apps, though my tablet's app page says I have 45 apps. Why the discrepancy?

2) It was easy enough to do. Can you recommend a second tablet "cleansing" Google Play app I could download just in case Malwarebytes missed something?

Thank you.

 

[B. Diddy]

Most of those apps are system apps (many of which are very small in size). Pixel phones (which have no bloatware) come with a little over 200 apps already listed in the apps list.

I don't really have any strong opinions about any other security apps, but if you want to use another, make sure you stick with well-known companies like Norton or Mcafee.