Android virus?

ayeshasi

My son has a samsung ace 2 mobile and it seems it has a virus as ads keep popping up and wprking slower than usual. Now i didnt even know it was possible to have a virus on a mobile. I owned an iphone and never had a problem.

Any idea how to get rid of it?

Also whats the best security as i now have SG4 so would like to keep mines virus-free too. Thanks

System

what apps have been recently installed?
any from outside the play store?
some apps are ad supported...

kwikbreaks

Avast have free Android AV on the Play store - give that a try.

I've seen some drive by infection attempts although nothing came of them so they were maybe aimed at PC and my browser is usually set to a PC user agent to avoid cut down mobile websites. I think I read that some ads either carried or lead to malware too.

Google don't seem to police their store quite so well as Apple - probably because they don't make such huge amounts of money from it directly.

Spelunthus

AVG also have an Anti-Virus for Android, on the Play Store. These "phones" are really small PCs with phone functions, so viruses are very possible. Bear in mind that your son may have knowingly downloaded a game or app that is Advert-supported - that is, it get its (legitimate) payments for showing adverts in return for the user running the app. Your son may want to review what he has recently installed.

ayeshasi

Thanks for the replies. Ill ask my son to have a look at his apps. No antiviral installed so I'll install that on his phone and mines

JJ_Egan

The majority of Android virus trojans etc are from non legitimate app sources .
Ads are often part and parcel of specific app that the user agrees to . In other words app is paid for by user receiving adverts .
There are some ad blockers on Play store but on later Android they have been blocked from working by Google .

jje

System

if you're careful about what apps are installed you won't get a virus on android, you would only get one if you install an app, or click a download link, or scan a qr code - imo av's on android are pointless money making apps unless of course you are installing non-market apps from unknown sources
(although even then I've never encountered any, but it is possible)

kwikbreaks

Problems do exist - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20768996 although they are probably rare.

As I said I've had a website or advert kick off a download automatically somehow. It was a .bin not a .apk so I'm not sure what it was aimed at. Anyhow I downloaded the Avast freebie and it scanned as harmless. I suppose I could have dug deeper by scanning it with a PC AV but I just deleted it. I think I maybe got to it via sausage fingers accidentally touching an advert so it could even have been quite legit.

System

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Problems do exist - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20768996 although they are probably rare.

exactly, that was a downloaded to phones via a download link sent via sms...

After the app is downloaded users must disable some safeguards, grant the app permission to install and give it the ability to browse the web or send texts messages before it will run.

be careful and install apps from the play store, and be careful what permissions you let things have, easier than installing more software

kwikbreaks

the_r_sole wrote: »

be careful and install apps from the play store

Good advice but in this case it's shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted - the OP suspects malware is present and one way to check is to try one of the AV products mentioned in the thread. The other is to reset the phone to factory defaults but that will mean lots of work getting it back to how it was (less malware of course).

System

the best thing for the op to do is to find out what apps were installed by the son, and uninstall them - i don't think malware is the correct term for ad supported apps, and it is much more likely that this is the problem here, better and easier to unistall one thing than install yet another imo