Probably the best thing about Mac and iOS is the fact that they are more stable and less prone to security threats.
How to Close Annoying Safari Pop-Up Scams on Mac.If you’re on iOS 9.3 or later you can use content blockers.How to Close Annoying Safari Pop-Up Scams on iOS.We’ll continue looking into this advertising strategy and any apps involved safe surfing. In cases like this where a website is using scripts to display advertising content you can disable Java Script in your browser, however doing so could disable some components of websites you normally visit.
If an app seems interesting, don’t install at that time, search it out and find a reputable place to install-providing you find it’s legitimate. On a mobile device it can go either way, my advice, just don’t install any app delivered via pop-up, spam, or phishing link. On a PC, nine times out of 10 it’s malware, often really bad stuff. Please use caution when encountering these types of pop-ups, whether it be on a PC or mobile device. We’ve reached out to Android Armor to see if they are aware of the practices and have not heard back. This could be a case of an overzealous advertiser who gets paid each time the app is installed. We're accustomed to seeing these practices with malware, but this isn’t standard practice for legitimate software.
This is another example of misleading advertisements where they win and you lose the company gets you to install their app and you get a false sense of security. In this case, we didn’t encounter a truly malicious app, but shady advertising practices. There's a lot of red flags with these pop-ups and Android Armor. We ran a ‘Quick Scan’ doing a deep or SD card scan with Android Armor requests credit card information-even a deep or SD card scan would find nothing as there's no malware on the phone. We installed Android Armor, ran a scan, and of course no infections, as expected since the phone was basically stock, not even the supposed Tapsnake malware. The app being pushed to install and save us is Android Armor, an antivirus app with some bad press regarding shady detection methods. Discovered in 2010, Tapsnake is real Android malware capable of spying on your location.Īlong with the additional information about Tapsnake, the warning screen gives us an option to install a "Free Antivirus Security Android app." Hmm, looks like Tapsnake can steal passwords and credit card information.
When the "scan" completes, a full screen warning displays with more information about the supposed threat. Of course we want to remove, pressing ‘Remove Virus’, on yet another warning screen, will start a fake scan. The supposed Trojan is MobileOS/TapSnake, with the dialog instructing you to press 'OK' for removal. When encountering one of these pop-ups you will see a dialog with a message indicating you have a virus.Īfter pressing ‘OK’ on the first dialog, you’ll be redirected to, which displays a second pop-up saying you are infected with a Trojan. These sites aren’t ones we’d expect to see malware on, so the pop-ups peaked our interest. We’ve recently encountered quite a few pop-ups saying our Android device is infected.