Many phishing cases lead to bogus web pages, sometimes impersonating companies or organizations we know, asking us to hand over our personal data under some made-up excuse. What if a package that doesn't arrive, a blocked account, a shipment that we supposedly have to pay for... However, there are times when those links include something else: a malicious file that, if executed, would infect our phone.

Downloading a malicious file does not always imply infection: sometimes you also have to install them

How can we know if some type of virus has been installed on our device? The first thing to keep in mind is that in most cases where we suffer small attacks through these fraudulent links, we will be the ones who will have to download and execute the malicious file.

In other words, in many cases a malicious program is downloaded to our device when we click on the link, but it is not until we click on the “Install” or “Run” button for this program that the virus really spreads. In those cases, it would be enough to delete the file in question from our “Downloads” folder.

In other cases, the infected links can download a malicious application that performs different actions once installed on our phone: access bank credentials, our contacts to send messages, the files we have saved, etc.

Manufacturer-integrated security solutions

This is where we must know that the situation varies from one operating system to another and according to the device model: "Depending on the manufacturer of our phone, we will have one or another integrated solution within our reach", explains our damned Mar Arribas, who tells us lends his cybersecurity specialist superpowers.

However, here it points out a problem, and that is that not all systems have an effective anti-malware protection system. For example, Windows 10 comes with antivirus and firewall installed by default.

This is not the case with Android, an operating system for mobile devices (including tablets, for example) that has around 70% of the market share. In other words, 7 out of 10 devices use this system. "On their official websites they say very little about what to do in these cases and the responsibility is mostly delegated to the manufacturers, who usually include their own application that acts as antimalware," Arribas continues. Other examples of systems that incorporate protection are those of Xiaomi or the iPhone.

The problem with Androids is also pointed out by Jorge Louzao, an expert in corporate cybersecurity and an ethical hacker: “The first recommendation is that if your Android is more than three years old, you have to make sure that it is in the latest version of the update and that it has all the [security] patches installed.”

He points out that the latest versions of Android "ask for a specific permission when an app wants to download some file," while those that haven't been updated for years don't. That's where his main advice comes from if we believe that our device has been infected: "If the virus enters an Android without updating or an iPhone without updating, the terminal must still be discarded."

Scanning the phone with an official antivirus will help detect viruses

How do we detect it if we don't have protection installed by default? The best thing, according to the recommendations of these specialists and also of the National Institute of Cybersecurity (INCIBE), is to be able to scan our phone with an antivirus that we download from an official store. Here we leave you a guide on antivirus, to better understand what they are for and in what cases they are useful.

“Users can count on quality anti-malware software purchased from the official app store to protect them against these threats. In any case, the best thing would be to use solutions already integrated into the phone”, explains Arribas.

The Internet Security Office collects in this article a list of free antivirus that we can download. Be careful, you always have to do it from official websites and stores. That we can not remove the malicious application that has been downloaded? In that case, the institute says that we should consider restoring the device to factory settings, that is, resetting it. For this reason, it is convenient to have backup copies of the contents of the phone.

In this article they have collaborated with their superpowers [email protected] [email protected] Mar Arribas and Jorge Louzao, specialists in cybersecurity.

Thanks to your superpowers, knowledge and experience we can fight more and better against lies. The Maldita.es community is essential to stop disinformation. Help us in this battle: send us the hoaxes that reach you on our WhatsApp service, lend us your superpowers, spread our denials and become an Ambassador.