Has my iPhone6 been infected?

home_bird

Hope I am posting in the right place. I wonder if anyone can help?

I opened an email on my iPhone from my sister 2 days ago (I later found out that she didn't send it so I think her email must've been hacked).

All it was was an attachment, which I opened and it looked like an article about some diet, which I then deleted.

Now I am worried that my iPhone has been infected with some virus and I'm now too scared to purchase any apps for it or to purchase anything from istore. I never do any shopping from it.

What signs do I need to look out for if it has been infected? Thanks for any help in advance.

gjchester

home_bird wrote: »

Hope I am posting in the right place. I wonder if anyone can help?

I opened an email on my iPhone from my sister 2 days ago (I later found out that she didn't send it so I think her email must've been hacked).

All it was was an attachment, which I opened and it looked like an article about some diet, which I then deleted.

No, You can't infect a non jailbroken iPhone in that way, if its jailbroken then its possible but very unlikely via this way.

Collabora

gjchester wrote: »

No, You can't infect a non jailbroken iPhone in that way, if its jailbroken then its possible but very unlikely via this way.

who says, as long as it can connected to the internet it can be infected with a virus/malware

StuC75

iphone apps are 'sandboxed' in terms of what they interfere with in terms of the rest of the applications on the phone. Applications need to be signed to run (except where the device has been jailbroken and so may not be as protected), hence such risks to an iphone are much lower.

Unless you can provide an example of an actual iphone virus?

Collabora wrote: »

who says, as long as it can connected to the internet it can be infected with a virus/malware

home_bird

Thank you all so much for your replies. x

home_bird

Stu

I have deleted the email now and don't want to open it again from the delete box x

J_B

home_bird wrote: »

Stu

I have deleted the email now and don't want to open it again from the delete box x

So, can you not delete it from the 'delete box'??

SeduLOUs

Collabora wrote: »

people on MSE need to learn to read

Maybe you should apply that rule to yourself.

OP asked if her phone may have been infected by an attachment in an email, not whether an iPhone can hypothetically be subject to malware or viruses in any other circumstances.

Big red letters don't make your point more valid by the way.

Collabora

SeduLOUs wrote: »

Maybe you should apply that rule to yourself.

OP asked if her phone may have been infected by an attachment in an email, not whether an iPhone can hypothetically be subject to malware or viruses in any other circumstances.

Big red letters don't make your point more valid by the way.

attachments are the main transportation of viruses and anything that connects via the internet CAN get a virus through an attachment.

gjchester

Collabora wrote: »

people on MSE need to learn to read

http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/iphone-and-ipad-get-first-serious-virus/story-fn6vihic-1227114728358

WireLurker infected Mac X OS based devices, and then IF you connected an iPhone or iPad to that device the device could be infected.

Wirelurker was spread to those OSX sysytems by people who downloaded software from a 3rd party store in China.

I'd hazard a guess that neither related to the OP.

The certificate it used was invalidated by Apple last year, soWirelurker as it was is not a risk any longer. Could it come back with a new certificate, maybe , but using a non jailbroken iPhone is a pretty hard target to hit.

So in this case opening the attachments was not a risk. Could it be in the future, possibly but not currently, Wirelurker spread by direct connection not attachments. Can it be on other OS's yes, just not Apple at the moment

For all people comments about Apple the IOS operating system is pretty good security wise, and Apple do push out updates to keep it that way, assuming of course the user takes them...

gjchester

Collabora wrote: »

attachments are the main transportation of viruses and anything that connects via the internet CAN get a virus through an attachment.

Email attachments are a easy way to spead malware but also the easiest for the big AV companies to pick up and get into AV defs. They are falling out of use as attack mechanisms as they get less effective.
Attatchments are one form of entry, but more its getting to be via browser, flash and OS exploits especially as more and more ISP's are filtering emails. I'm on Virgin Media who outsourced to Google, I don't remember the last time my desktop AV flagged a email file as being infected.
I suppose it could be a very new exploit that Google's AV service has not seen and has infected me, but more and more the alerts from my AV are down to malware in browsers than email.

We also tend to use mobile devices more, so attachments are increasingly hard to get right, sending an attachment means you need to know what the target system is Windows/Mac/Linux/Android etc to be sure it runs. Using a browser exploit lets the malware writer redirect the system to the suitable code for that platform, after all many browsers reveal exactly what the system they are running on is using.

I'm also relatively sure my PVR, weather station and Squeezeboxes, which are all connected to the internet are not targets. There simply is not enough devices out there to make it worth a malware writers time,.