WP anti-virus

[Banhcs]

I just read a thread from another user asking for a WP Lumia 625 anti-virus but i wanna ask again over this topic since i got a virus on my phone that was passed on to my phone from my laptop and using my anti-virus wont work on scanning my phone either except for the SD card so.... anyone knows about any good anti-virus capable of taking, obviously, a virus off my WP?

 

[EchoOne30]

i got a virus on my phone

No you didn't, WP doesn't get viruses. Same with iPhone.

 

[Banhcs]

you tell me if dowloading updates, playing music opening microsoft word, doing calls and hanging them up, opening aps already in my phone and so on a couple of more things its not something a virus can do and i have seen this for three days now...

 

[xandros9]

I am all but certain you do not have a virus. It is technically possible, but as far as the world knows, nobody has cracked WP enough to do anything remotely like a virus. Just too relatively secure and not popular enough for big guns to target it just yet.

My thinking:
1. traditional viruses (and legit programs) will NOT run on Windows Phone. It's a combo of hardware differences and sheer lack of freedom.
2. Windows Phone has less freedom than Android and its a double edged sword of sorts. You and apps have less freedom and functionality, but it also means malicious apps can't stick their hands into other apps' pies. so to speak

3. All those sound like normal functionality.

It could be a defective device.

First course of action for a phone that is acting up.
Dr. Xandros9 prescribes a Soft Reset! (Press and hold volume down and power until the phone vibrates indicating a restart.)

We will go from there.

 

[Reebs Reebs]

Do you think your screen just keeps pressing buttons by itself? I have this issue sometimes. As if it keeps touching the screen all the time?

 

[a5cent]

So far, the entire world's IT security industry hasn't discovered a single piece of malware that successfully targets WP. That's not to say it's impossible, but the probability that you're the first one to discover such a thing is unlikely.

Oh yeah... and there are no anti-virus apps for WP. I'm only aware of one such app that MS eventually removed from the store because it didn't actually do anything.

 

[Banhcs]

Do you think your screen just keeps pressing buttons by itself? I have this issue sometimes. As if it keeps touching the screen all the time?

yes, it does and the upper letters on the keyboard sometimes can not be used. it hangs out my calls sometimes put em on hold mute em send me for a three line call etc... pauses music, foward them *** well.

 

[a5cent]

you tell me if dowloading updates, playing music opening microsoft word, doing calls and hanging them up, opening aps already in my phone and so on a couple of more things its not something a virus can do and i have seen this for three days now...

Could you explain that in more detail? Can you stand four feet away from your device, not touch it, and watch it do these things? Some people have reported similar issues which ended up just being an oversensitive screen. In that case you might consider lowering screen touch sensitivity in your settings.

Even if malware of that sort did existed, it couldn't make calls on its own. No such API exists.

 

[Reebs Reebs]

I'm experiencing something similar but not quite the same. It hasn't affected calls at all but it has continuously opened the same app (actually the same screen area)

If it happens again, try this: Hit the Windows button and lock your screen. Does the lock screen keep on moving up and down as if you were lifting it just a tiny bit but not enough to unlock it all the way up? If so, we have the same problem.

I'm really hoping it's not a faulty touch screen, but so far, it seems to be software related. Maybe an app messing things up. I had an app called magnify beta and I correlated this happening to me with using the app, but I have no proof.

Let me know what you find.

 

[Banhcs]

I'm experiencing something similar but not quite the same. It hasn't affected calls at all but it has continuously opened the same app (actually the same screen area)

If it happens again, try this: Hit the Windows button and lock your screen. Does the lock screen keep on moving up and down as if you were lifting it just a tiny bit but not enough to unlock it all the way up? If so, we have the same problem.

I'm really hoping it's not a faulty touch screen, but so far, it seems to be software related. Maybe an app messing things up. I had an app called magnify beta and I correlated this happening to me with using the app, but I have no proof.

Let me know what you find.

yes, the lock scrren gets a lil bit stuck and when i try to pull it up i have to do it several times before going into the number lock screen... thanks reminding me of that one.

Could you explain that in more detail? Can you stand four feet away from your device, not touch it, and watch it do these things? Some people have reported similar issues which ended up just being an oversensitive screen. In that case you might consider lowering screen touch sensitivity in your settings.

Even if malware of that sort did existed, it couldn't make calls on its own. No such API exists.

yes i have, almost 3 feet away with and without handfree device and handset on and it has happened.

any of you got a real working solution for this? i think i have given any detail related to my prob as much as i have seen my WP does or does not... someone said something about reformating the phone but im not much into phone technology development or repairment... thx in advance

 

[a5cent]

i think i have given any detail related to my prob

Your description still isn't good enough to really understand what you are seeing.

When you were sitting 3 feet away from your device, could you sit there and watch it continually start and close random apps and/or continually do other things, or did it just launch an app once and then go back to doing nothing until you picked it up again? How often do these unintended actions occur? Can you use the device at all, or is it doing random things to the point that makes the device unusable? Does it look like the device is just registering touch inputs where none were given, or is it also doing things you couldn't normally do from the current screen? All of that would be helpful to know.

Have you tried lowering touch input sensitivity like I suggested?

 

[Reebs Reebs]

Your description still isn't good enough to really understand what you are seeing.

When you were sitting 3 feet away from your device, could you sit there and watch it continually start and close random apps and/or continually do other things, or did it just launch an app once and then go back to doing nothing until you picked it up again? How often do these unintended actions occur? Can you use the device at all, or is it doing random things to the point that makes the device unusable? Does it look like the device is just registering touch inputs where none were given, or is it also doing things you couldn't normally do from the current screen? All of that would be helpful to know.

Have you tried lowering touch input sensitivity like I suggested?

I can reply with my experience with this. Happens a handful of times. Lowering the touch sensitivity helped greatly, but it occurred after that again. I can be sitting 3 feet away and the phone acts as if there's an imaginary hand touching the screen every half a second. I'm really hoping as I said above that it's not a hardware issue.

I was able to capture it with the Diagnostic tool and uploaded it to MS. I just don't think they'll reply to me with individual details about it. It was a pain to get the diagnostic app to start as the screen kept opening other apps and clicking buttons within the apps, but after a good 15 minutes, I got it to work. The phone got so overwhelmed that it became unresponsive and I had to soft reset it.

 

[a5cent]

I'm really hoping as I said above that it's not a hardware issue.

If reducing screen sensitivity lead to a notable improvement, then it's not a software problem. Either the phone is being used in very hot and/or humid environments (which I very much doubt), or the digitizer is out of whack. If your device is still not behaving after reducing screen sensitivity, you'll need to get the digitizer replaced.

 

[th0mas96]

Actually, viruses aren't impossible, but very unlikely. You'd be surprised to know how extremely lucrative the dealing with exploits is (just sandbox escapes on iOS are worth 6-7 figures, remote exploits way more), Windows Phone has the luck that there are less devices out there.. And normally you should not be the target of someone with either the skill or the money needed to get to your phone. Except you're a spy, and someone's after you

 

[bobbob1016]

you tell me if dowloading updates, playing music opening microsoft word, doing calls and hanging them up, opening aps already in my phone and so on a couple of more things its not something a virus can do and i have seen this for three days now...

Has it been dropped or had the screen replaced? Is there a screen cover?

Basically, for a "virus" to get on to *any* Smartphone, it would need the phone to be rooted/jailbroken/similar, or on a specific version of the OS that is exploitable. The virus on your PC would then need to know that you had a WP8 device, which, lets face it, isn't that common. It would then have to wait for you to sync it directly to your phone, and hope that the sync process doesn't see it, or sanitize it. Then, it would have to do an exploit on the root/jailbreak/similar to run something or more likely trick you in to running it. Then you have a virus. Did that happen? If so, play the lottery. Now.

 

[Muessig]

I think it's fair to say this is most likely the digitizer as previously said, not a virus.

 

[xandros9]

Relevant:

xkcd: Virus Venn Diagram

Not trying to single out OP here, but I think we can get a chuckle out of this one

 

[prasath1234]

May be he got a virus.hard reset the phone.

Sent from my C2305 using WPCentral Forums mobile app

 

[anon(5445874)]

First, you do not have a virus.
Second, for just about any phone, antivirus is a scam.

 

[a5cent]

Relevant:

xkcd: Virus Venn Diagram

Not trying to single out OP here, but I think we can get a chuckle out of this one

lol, that is so funny because it's absolutely true!!!! I mean no offence to the OP either, it's a very common mistake, and certainly not the worst one could make.