Safari Browser Virus

[trainwrecka]

I don't know if this is categorized as a virus, but here is the info:

My mother-in-law tried to go to Amazon, but accidentally misspelled it (not sure in what way). A call to action pop-up (like a push notification) came up that was larger than the whole screen vertically. This prevented the ability to clear the notification out.

She called the number on the pop-up warning her about the virus and they tried to charge her to get rid of it. She said she would wait and talk to me - thankfully. She now knows to NEVER call a number from a website about a virus.

Anyway, I've seen this sort of thing on the Mac and it is much more "infectious" in the browser. Quite a pain to get rid of, but didn't think it was possible on iOS. It was very simple to get rid of - Settings > Safari > Clear web data and history.

Just thought I would give a heads up in case someone else runs into this.

 

[Armen]

I don't know if this is categorized as a virus, but here is the info:

My mother-in-law tried to go to Amazon, but accidentally misspelled it (not sure in what way). A call to action pop-up (like a push notification) came up that was larger than the whole screen vertically. This prevented the ability to clear the notification out.

She called the number on the pop-up warning her about the virus and they tried to charge her to get rid of it. She said she would wait and talk to me - thankfully. She now knows to NEVER call a number from a website about a virus.

Anyway, I've seen this sort of thing on the Mac and it is much more "infectious" in the browser. Quite a pain to get rid of, but didn't think it was possible on iOS. It was very simple to get rid of - Settings > Safari > Clear web data and history.

Just thought I would give a heads up in case someone else runs into this.

Edit: just saw you had a solution at your last line. Yeah, this seems to happen once in a while to people.

 

[freeskier93]

Come on, this is a scam. There's no virus, close out the tab and move on.

 

[noobinator]

That's a Pop up ad that is also a scam.

 

[C DM]

Come on, this is a scam. There's no virus, close out the tab and move on.

Certainly pretty much all of that the case, aside from the last part about closing the tab and moving on--the whole issue is that it makes it impossible to close the tab (and the resolution isn't even to close Safari and restart it or even restart the phone, but clearing out all data from Safari from its settings, which isn't something that many typical users even really know exists, let alone would think of using).