email virus

[Baz8755]

On my HTC desire I received an email from a friend with nothing but a URL in it.

Assuming it was a joke I opened it and found it was a Vigra site, I knew he would not have sent it so when I quizzed him he denied it but will virus scan his PC.

My concern is whether or not my phone can get infected by opening a dodgey URL in an email.

Cheers

Baz

 

[SUroot]

It would be a feat if it did.

1) Most Viruses are coded to affect Windows. Android runs on Linux which is completely different

2) Android cannot run (or install) any apps without user intervention to allow permissions and runs them in a sandboxed environment.

 

[Tyseyh]

+1 to what Dan said.
Don't worry dude.

 

[chris 290]

Viruses are usually infected by users running an excecutable file not by opening a link to a web page I believe. As others said, android is not windows so not a problem.

 

[adskankster]

It's worth noting that there is increasing amounts of malware coming out for Android. While (as said above) this is not a situation where it is likely to be able to infect your phone, people should be careful when installing new software either from the Market or not.

Recent malware instances have had 50,000 odd installs before Google became aware and removed them. I always, at least, check the publisher is who it ought to be before installing as one early case the software was a modified version of genuine apps and pushed out under a different developer name.

 

[SUroot]

Yes, installing bad software, if you believe it to be genuine is a problem because you have agreed to "allow" the application access as part of the installation process.

In the market, read reviews to ensure it is not fake. Only install applications from trusted sources

 

[Rastaman-FB]

Viruses are usually infected by users running an excecutable file not by opening a link to a web page I believe. As others said, android is not windows so not a problem.

on windows if a website has a hidden frame or iframe with a auto click link to a java file then it can run a script in java against your machine and you will get infected.
good antiviruses can stop this but its rife on things like advert supported gaming sites, mod sites, porn etc

tell tail sign is if your java console icone suddenly opens in windows without you doing anything.


the net is bad mmmmkay