Android Virus

[Zambo]

Mrs Z has an android. She has just had a message come up under a Google heading saying that she has 4 viruses on it, and the it goes to another page telling her to download some app called fairy something or other.

I told her it's no good asking me as my phone still has an aerial on it, but it sounds like it could be a hoax.

Any ideas on what she should do?

[Eaststand]

Hoax

[Eaststand]

First, uninstall any recently downloaded apps. Download malwarebytes from the play store and run it.

Should be fine.

[The Ghost of Alex Higgins]

There's trouble at t'mill

[Zambo]

First, uninstall any recently downloaded apps. Download malwarebytes from the play store and run it.

Should be fine.

OK cheers. Have got Malwarebytes on PC , and works well.

[Zambo]

There's trouble at t'mill

Fuckin hope not, and it's high tide, cant get on it.

[m4rkb]

Android is a fairly bullet proof OS based Linux. Apart from the apps you install and the permissions granted to them you should be OK. there was a time when there were virtually no active viruses on linux while new ones on Windows came out at the rate of tens of thousands a week.

I'd tend to go with it being a hoax. Even if not, it is simply sorted.

[Zambo]

Cheers for that.

[m4rkb]

Having said that, I googled a phone number left on the house phone a couple of days ago. It was a Microsoft engineer who had spotted a potential security flaw on my computer and no doubt needed to walk me through the solution.

I'd pay good money to take that call and should have rang back instead of ignoring. Whoever was on the other end would have got my finest thick as a plank Brummy accent while kissing their ring that they phoned to tell me.

Credit card details would have also been at the ready, namely that thing they give you at Lloyds with the cardreader.

[birdie]

Having said that, I googled a phone number left on the house phone a couple of days ago. It was a Microsoft engineer who had spotted a potential security flaw on my computer and no doubt needed to walk me through the solution.

I'd pay good money to take that call and should have rang back instead of ignoring. Whoever was on the other end would have got my finest thick as a plank Brummy accent while kissing their ring that they phoned to tell me.

Credit card details would have also been at the ready, namely that thing they give you at Lloyds with the cardreader.

Do you get those nice bods with a sub continental accent telling you that Windows has reported that someone is using your computer for illegal purposes? I lead them along for a few minutes with daft questions which they always seem to have some sort of answer to and when I ask them if my computer is reporting the fault 'now' and they always say 'yes' but if you put in some code they can then sort the problem out, that's when I tell them they may have to wait a little whilst I pop to PC World and buy a bloody computer, at which point they ring off.
Can't imagine why.

[m4rkb]

Having said that, I googled a phone number left on the house phone a couple of days ago. It was a Microsoft engineer who had spotted a potential security flaw on my computer and no doubt needed to walk me through the solution.

I'd pay good money to take that call and should have rang back instead of ignoring. Whoever was on the other end would have got my finest thick as a plank Brummy accent while kissing their ring that they phoned to tell me.

Credit card details would have also been at the ready, namely that thing they give you at Lloyds with the cardreader.

Do you get those nice bods with a sub continental accent telling you that Windows has reported that someone is using your computer for illegal purposes? I lead them along for a few minutes with daft questions which they always seem to have some sort of answer to and when I ask them if my computer is reporting the fault 'now' and they always say 'yes' but if you put in some code they can then sort the problem out, that's when I tell them they may have to wait a little whilst I pop to PC World and buy a bloody computer, at which point they ring off.
Can't imagine why.

I don't get many (or any) of those birdie but I do get an awful lot of someone has your password so we've locked you out of your email accounts for the tenth time this week. I've got about 14 accounts on the phone alone so when one crashes, the lot come down. This really annoys me because the phone itself has a digital signature so they know full well it's me anyway.

But these scams are worth doing as long as there are people about who are thick enough to confirm their bank details or they'll have the account shut down and lose all their money or that a Nigerian Diplomat really wants to share 14 trillion dollars with you.

[birdie]

I got an email the other day about something going on with the computer, can't really remember what it was supposed to be, but if I downloaded the attached file it would guide me through whatever it was that needed doing, my finger went to 'report spam' and 'delete', also got an email on the iPad about some payment for some app that I'd never heard of, did contact the bank just to make sure and they assured me that if they did try to get $199 they would block it, said it was phishing, but said I was right to make sure, so, and I yous lot are all more savvy than me, never feel daft about contacting the bank about something like this, they really don't mind.

[Zambo]

When my wife told me she's got an Android, I thought she had bought one of those sex robots.

[The End]

Any message like that is a hoax, Zambo-o.

[Zambo]

Cheers I tell her not to panic next time.