Possible phone virus

[ranger85]

Yesterday while using my HTC One M9, a full screen advertisement popped up. It had no X button to get rid of it. All the buttons at the bottom were unresponsive. I was able to shut my phone off finally, but on restart another ad appeared after a few minutes with the same scenario. I did a factory reset, ouch, and thankfully everything returned to normal. The only thing I did was download two small apps, can't remember what they were, and also changed the color of my sms bubbles. I never download anything to my phone unless it is from Google play. I do remember a few app updates that morning. This is the first time I have ever seen anything like this. Can anyone speculate on what may have happened? I'm running 6.0.

 

[AndroidSans]

I have a tablet that I stopped using about 3-4 years ago. I forgot what type it was, but I went on a Google Play free app spree. Somehow, one of the apps downloaded more than itself. It downloaded a virus that caused it to download randomly selected apps from the Play Store. The purpose of the virus was to, in my belief, completely fill the the tablet's storage. It worked, as the next day, I found a slew of apps on the device that I had not downloaded. The tablet ended up becoming outdated and was unable to update any apps. I eventually replaced it. But this is to let you know that it is possible to get viruses from downloading apps on the Google Play Store.

 

[SpookDroid]

Most likely from those apps, not necessarily a virus. A lot of apps use really bad methods for advertising. If you are concerned about these, you can download an Ad Detector app and it'll list which apps are pushing ads to your phone. The newest trend, and unfortunately because Google allowed it in the latest Android updates, is to display ads on the lockscreen while charging.

 

[ranger85]

Thank you for the reply AndroidSans, and am sorry to hear of your tablet dilemma. Quite disconcerting to see GP is vulnerable as they are the go to folks for apps that are safe. Half the fun of having an Android phone or tablet is trying out new and useful apps. I may be older than some of the users on here but I'm just not ready to gravitate to a bloody Doro phone yet. Thanks for your time.

 

[ranger85]

Thanks SpookDroid, I will be adding Ad Detector to my phone in short order. Come to think of it, while using my computer I do keep my phone on charge so in hindsight, that is more than likely what happened. Now that was not a good decision on Googles part, just when I was thinking that they were making security a number one priority. Oh well maybe in N we will see some signifigant improvement. Thanks for your time.

 

[Elec Tronik]

I had a same problem on my htc m7, i tried everything, even to unroot it, cause i thinked that problem is in the supersu app. I installed antivirus, and after that there weren't ads anymore