#android

#android

So, I have a friend who has an Android (G2) with Gingerbread. Lately she's been having some sort of malware attack that keeps popping up giving her offers for "6 free ringtones" and other spam-like offers.

She's not sure which app, or if it is an app, that is doing this to her phone. Does anyone have any ideas that might help her find out?

Comments

Melina M said…
Sounds like a rogue app to me. She should probably get rid of everything ringtone-related, and/or Google any apps she's downloaded to see if anyone else is reporting similar issues.
Jason ON said…
Googleing the apps individually is a good idea. I'll pass it along. Especially anything downloaded or updated recently.
Gem F said…
I'd start by pulling up the list of currently running apps, and then like melina m said, google those to see if other people are reporting similar problems
Chris Darrow said…
Get an AV app. They will scan all her apps and remove the malware.
Jason ON said…
Supposedly she has an AV app on her phone already.
Chris Darrow said…
Do you know what one?
Chris Darrow said…
I use lookout it works pretty well.
Calvin Phuong said…
It's a pop-up and not just the normal adverts found in free apps?
Jason ON said…
I believe she said pop-up.

Chris Darrow, she's using Lookout.
Chris Darrow said…
Strange that one works real well for me
Jason ON said…
The original comment:

_phone question for you
have you ever had a malicious app show up? I have been getting this notifications in my notification bar "6 Free Ringtones" and spam stuff like that_

So, it looks like they're popping up in htenotification's bar.
Melina M said…
Only a few apps have dared intrude into the notifications bar for advertising. It should be really easy to narrow down what's doing it.
Adam Vollmer said…
Here's what's happening.

She doesn't have a virus, or malware, or anything like that. She has an app installed with a really scummy ad network, that will continuously send notifications and possibly show activities/dialogs with ads.

Have her clarify what the "popups" are. Are they notifications, or are they actual activities appearing on her screen on top of other things. If they're the latter, you can figure out who did this by means of looking at logcat (have her install aLogcat, and send the log to you IMMEDIATELY after this happens).

She should go through her list of apps in phone settings -> applications -> manage applications -> downloaded, and start uninstalling all of the free apps that she downloaded that aren't made by major, well known companies. Kindle can stay. Super Free Bubble Pop 3D gets the boot.

Anything with an internet permission is suspect, and especially anything that's "running". She can "force stop" an application in application details, and it shouldn't be able to alarm itself to cause one of these popups to appear. As of Gingerbread this kind of scummy behavior can be slowed by that method, at least.
Thomas Morffew said…
Lesson here is that Lookout doesn't work.
Adam Vollmer said…
Well, it works, it just doesn't do what you expect it to do here. This is pretty sleazy but more or less legitimate. The end user might want Super Bubbles Cake Fun 3D, and might be willing to deal with really obtrusive advertising. It's not rooting their device or sending mass SMSs or calling 900 numbers.
Calvin Phuong said…
Thomas Morffew Lookout's job is not to catch "annoying" apps. It's job is to stop Malware that would steal your information.
Calvin Phuong said…
Thomas Morffew Has it what? Stopped malware?
Adam Vollmer said…
Yes, they do catch some malware. You should rely on common sense before relying on an AV, however.

Glad to hear you found the cause.

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