Android phone possibly hacked

TELLIT01

My wife was using Facebook on her Samsung phone when she started getting barraged with messages from "Chrome powuauque.com"   Message content has included 'Your phone may need attention', 'Full Memory?'  and from "Chrome a9.clipwavenet.com" 'Tap here to TURN ON device protection', 'Guard against mobile threats', amongst others.  I can't find anything about this on a Google search, so wondering what steps we need to take.

I have put her phone into 'aircraft/flight' mode.

Neil49

I would start by simply switching the phone off completely and seeing if the messages return when you restart it. 

If they do then the simplest option (but most drastic) is to completely reset the phone and start from scratch. Obviously make sure you know your passwords to log back into your account. Hopefully you backup your contacts lists etc to Google. If necessary backup WhatsApp (if you use it) before you do a reset. 

TELLIT01

They have continued after the phone was switched off and back on.  Thankfully her list of contacts isn't massive so we can re-enter them if necessary.  I'll have to check if Whatsapp is backed up too.

Thanks for the advise.  I'll wait for a bit to see if anybody has any more ideas.

born_again

Try downloading Malwarebytes from Play Store & running that.

A google for a9.clipwavenet.com throws up a warning from Malwarebytes that on my PC.

TELLIT01

Thanks.  I'll do that. 

Updated - I've installed and run Malwarebytes and it shows no threats, thankfully. 

More investigation shows that Notifications had been set to 'On' for Chrome although we never use it.  Firefox is our browser of choice.  My wife suspects she may have changed something unintentionally, but Notifications is now off for Chrome.

TimeLord1

Try Duck Duck Go as a browser it will block cookies tracking and adverts adverts is what I suspect spammed the phone.