Received a spam text with attached image. Should I be worried?

[km2000]

I got a spam text with an attached picture. The picture loaded automatically when I opened the message to view it. How concerned should I be? Is it possible that this picture had some kind of malicious code in it, and that I exposed myself somehow by viewing it? Is that even a thing? Using an LG phone, Android 10. Thanks in advance for any tips.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! I doubt that a simple image would be malicious. The main thing to avoid would be to download any attached file.

 

[mustang7757]

Which message app you use ? Google message handles those pretty well.

 

[km2000]

Which message app you use ? Google message handles those pretty well.

I was using the stock messaging app that came with the phone. It doesn't appear to have any settings to prevent images from automatically loading.

 

[mustang7757]

I was using the stock messaging app that came with the phone. It doesn't appear to have any settings to prevent images from automatically loading.

Give Google messages a try

 

[km2000]

Give Google messages a try

Thanks for the suggestion. Though do you think this is something worth being concerned about in the first place?

 

[mustang7757]

Thanks for the suggestion. Though do you think this is something worth being concerned about in the first place?

It looks like spam messages are becoming more common as I'm seeing it lately myself even on my iPhone.

 

[km2000]

It looks like spam messages are becoming more common as I'm seeing it lately myself even on my iPhone.

Why would a spammer include an image attachment?

 

[mustang7757]

Why would a spammer include an image attachment?

Who knows , maybe to sell junk or ads to lead somewhere.

 

[ManiacJoe]

Why would a spammer include an image attachment?

Sometimes a picture is needed for the message to be informative.

Also, spam filtering on words as text is simple.
Put the "words" into a picture and they can no longer be filtered on.