smartmoneytime malware

[Ovidiu]

I've got this pesky malware freezing my Ipad, asking to click for a £500 voucher to Tesco.
How can I get rid of it? I' ve tried everything in the "books" , forums, etc ...
Who says that the ipad is immune to malware doesn't know squat. I am really ticked as Apple keeps telling " oh ... is nothing. Go to Settings and ... bla, bla". The malware is still there. For now, is active only when browsing some common news websites. It is really bad and I think Apple knows that its OS is not immune anymore to malwares and viruses as they keep bragging. Happily I will give my tablet to their people to try to fix this ! !!!. ... Ah... I took it to one of those Apple swanky shops and one of their geeks told me " sorry , can't fix it". Just like this!
Not sure what to do now? ... Probably to throw it in the bin and forget the whole thing.
The tablet served me well for over two years, is a good product but this Apple selfsufficiency "we are immune to malware" just doesn't fly anymore. At least not for me. They should start roll their sleeves and start protecting their customers. To me, the whole Apple hype starts to smell more and more like the Windows sweat when it comes to protection against those making malwares and viruses.
I'm one dissapointed customer. ... Probably they don't care. At this point, me neither.

 

[BobbyBoomer]

Sorry you are having the problem, and sorry I can't help you get rid of it. Here are a couple of ideas, excuse the clutter if you already done them.

Have you tried one of the Anti Virus companies? Norton, Mcafee or whoever is currently writing for Macs and iOS.

If you've tried that, you might want to bring it in to a computer repair shop that deals with Apple. My wife picked up a bug on her Windows computer and all the forum help in the world couldn't tell me how to exorcise it. For $85 the computer guy on the highway got rid of it. He had access to programs that the common mortal does not (or can't afford).

Anyway, the last thing I'd to is pay the ransom.

Apple has never-ever been immune to malware. In fact, the first computer virus was on an Apple computer (I think an Apple ][ ).

Macs have had fewer malware problems because they have always been a smaller target than the 500 pound gorilla, Microsoft. Like programming apps, if you want your malware to spread the fastest, target the company that has >90% of the market. That used to be MS. Now that 'droid and iOS are making gains, they become a more attractive target to the bad guys.

Don't let Apple or a fanboy tell you Apple is immune to malware. it just isn't so, never has been, and probably never will be. OS people will get smarter, but so will the crackers.

I always back up my important files to removable drives with a mirror app. I keep my AV and Malware apps up to date, and I keep a current disk image on one removable, and images from 6 monthly copies on another removable drive. Of course this doesn't make me immune, but increases my chances of recovery.

On my iPad I don't worry about it, because so far all I've done with it is couch Internet surfing. I find the iPad less of a tool and more of a toy than my laptop, so I do my serious computing on my ThinkPad. Of course that's just me. I suppose that depends on the apps you use for your serious work.

Bob

 

[ardchoille]

I've got this pesky malware freezing my Ipad, asking to click for a £500 voucher to Tesco.
How can I get rid of it? I' ve tried everything in the "books" , forums, etc ...
Who says that the ipad is immune to malware doesn't know squat. I am really ticked as Apple keeps telling " oh ... is nothing. Go to Settings and ... bla, bla". The malware is still there. For now, is active only when browsing some common news websites. It is really bad and I think Apple knows that its OS is not immune anymore to malwares and viruses as they keep bragging. Happily I will give my tablet to their people to try to fix this ! !!!. ... Ah... I took it to one of those Apple swanky shops and one of their geeks told me " sorry , can't fix it". Just like this!
Not sure what to do now? ... Probably to throw it in the bin and forget the whole thing.
The tablet served me well for over two years, is a good product but this Apple selfsufficiency "we are immune to malware" just doesn't fly anymore. At least not for me. They should start roll their sleeves and start protecting their customers. To me, the whole Apple hype starts to smell more and more like the Windows sweat when it comes to protection against those making malwares and viruses.
I'm one dissapointed customer. ... Probably they don't care. At this point, me neither.

First of all, please calm down, this isn't malware.. but it is a well known problem.

Secondly, what you're experiencing is a maliciously crafted advertisement that is using JavaScript to display browser messages. Any device or computer that allows JavaScript would be susceptible to the exact same thing.

Finally, you can rid yourself of this problem by manually killing Safari, then go into Safari settings and clear all data and cookies. your browser experience should vastly improve after that. Just make a note of the offending website and steer clear of it for a bit.

The only way for Apple to efficiently block this problem would be to turn off JavaScript. But that would leave users unable to use a good portion of the World Wide Web.

For future reference, the only computer system that is immune to malware is one that is powered off.

 

[BobbyBoomer]

<...snip...>
For future reference, the only computer system that is immune to malware is one that is powered off.

Can I borrow that quote in the future?

And thanks for the info on the well known problem - who knows, I might find that one some day.

Bob

 

[ardchoille]

Can I borrow that quote in the future?

And thanks for the info on the well known problem - who knows, I might find that one some day.

Bob

You may indeed borrow that quote

You're welcome,glad I could be of help

 

[rasmith1959]

For future reference, the only computer system that is immune to malware is one that is powered off.

Or one that is not connected to the Internet....




Roy

Sent from my iPad Air using Tapatalk

 

[twerppoet]

Or one that is not connected to the Internet....

Early malware was distributed by disk and other physical media. While uncommon today, it is still possible. If you install software on the computer, or connect media to it, then the potential for malware exists. Heck, there have been cases of malware coming pre-installed on computers.

Is it likely? No. But with the billions of people and hundreds of millions of computers in the world you can bet someone will get bit, and be completely surprised because they thought it was impossible.

 

[BobbyBoomer]

Floppy disks were indeed dangerous way back when. I remember scanning them. I heard people in offices would put them in the drive when the computer was down, so when someone turned the computer on, it would look at the A drive first and load the bug. Could be an urban legend.

I also remember backing up my hard drive on to floppies before installing anything new. It took a looooong time for just a little bit of data (by today's standards).

I still back up (full disk image) before installing anything and of course, scan anything that has an extension I don't trust.

Then I got my first 40Mb external drive. It was huge, as big as a phone book (we had them back then) and you could hear it whir up to speed. We called it a Winchester drive.

Pre-installed malware? Isn't that known as "a bonus feature"?

Bob

 

[Ovidiu]

Killing Safari then cleaning the data and cookies is not a solution. I' ve been doing it for 2 months already.
Coming here I hoped for proper help.
IPads are not protected and Apple's claim that everything is fine is just plain lie.
My IPad goes to the garbage bin.
Cheers.

 

[ardchoille]

Killing Safari then cleaning the data and cookies is not a solution. I' ve been doing it for 2 months already.
Coming here I hoped for proper help.
IPads are not protected and Apple's claim that everything is fine is just plain lie.
My IPad goes to the garbage bin.
Cheers.

The only permanent way to stop the behavior you reported is to turn off JavaScript, but then you'd be missing out on much of the web. Either that or consider avoiding some of the websites you visit. I've been on iOS since 2012 and I've experienced this type of problem twice since that time.

 

[BobbyBoomer]

Trashing it is an extreme reaction.

Have you tried using something other than Safari?

I personally don't like Safari. Mercury, Dolphin and a couple of others seem to behave better.

Bob

 

[Blue92]

Just had a similar issue. Cleared all the Safari data and it's gone.

This one was a "Rewards" popup showing only an "OK" button. It came up on every page except the initial home page.

 

[ardchoille]

Yeah, as more malicious people see how effective these types of ads can be they will start doing it themselves. The irony is that these types of ads are perfect examples of why people use ad blockers.

 

[twerppoet]

Yeah, as more malicious people see how effective these types of ads can be they will start doing it themselves. The irony is that these types of ads are perfect examples of why people use ad blockers.

And probably one of the main reasons Apple has added an Ad Blocker API in iOS 9; to give developers more control over malicious ads. I wouldn't be surprised if Safari gets some benefit from this new feature as well, though it's unlikely they will implement a blanket ad blocking option. That would be far too controversial, and in someways harmful, since it would block the main revenue model for the entire web on one of the most popular mobile browsers.

 

[BobbyBoomer]

I use pop-up blockers on my Windows computer (Firefox) and it keeps things like that at a minimum. I don't mind an ad in the margin, on the top, or even interrupting the text, but pop-ups irritate me because they are too intrusive.

Another thing I don't like is sites that automatically start playing music or talking to me without asking me to click something first. I can't get to that X fast enough.

Apple is blocking Firefox for iOS because they want all web browsers to use Apple's web 'engine'. Firefox uses the Gecko engine. Apple won't allow the Gecko based browser because Apple wants the ad revenue from Safari. At least that's what I've read in a few places.

I'd love Firefox for iOS, but until Apple wants to make things more compatible with the rest of the world, it isn't going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, Apple does a lot of things right, but IMHO they do a few things wrong too, and being too domineering is one of them. I can see they want all the revenue, but there are places to make some compromises.

It's one of the reasons why I gave up Apple as my laptop/desktop OS. So in that respect, they lost some of the revenue they could have had by being a little more flexible.

Bob