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My lawnmower has a virus too. I sent a package to Florida and it was lost in the mail. Someone hacked my lawnmower... only explanation !
 
Malware actually, which is a virus when it has taken control of my outgoing mailbox..!

no two ways about it if it looks like a virus then it probably us a virus,

I stopped it but have severely limited my ability to email from my iPhone

I think it's time for a reset
There are no iOS viruses that exist in the wild, and the only possible way to get any malware on your iPhone is if it's jailbroken. Your email account was hacked (if the errant emails appear in your Sent folder) or spoofed (if they don't appear in your Sent folder), which can happen even if you don't own a computer or smartphone. It has nothing to do with your device, but only with your email account. Change your passwords and make them long and complex, with upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. You don't have malware on your unjailbroken iPhone. It is far too common for people to believe they have malware when something happens with their Mac/iPhone/iPad that they don't expect or understand, when, in fact, malware is the least likely possibility.
this virus is similar to the MacKeeper Malware,
MacKeeper is not malware. It's a useless app that can potentially cause more harm than good, but it doesn't meet the definition of malware.

From information I have gathered about this virus/malware, it is not limited to any specific system. Meaning all Mac's, PC's and smart phones are potentially vulnerable
Your "information" is false. There has never been a virus in the wild that can affect OS X, and only a handful of Trojans, none of which produce the symptoms you're experiencing. No malware in existence can run on OS X and Windows and iOS, as they are completely different operating systems. Rather than continue making uninformed and false statements about nonexistent malware, you should follow the recommendations posted to secure your email accounts.
 
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Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

If you still don't get it, start again from the first line.
 
OP: How do you know that the emails were sent from your iPhone (as opposed to merely being sent through your account on your email server)? Do they show up in your Sent items folder in Mail? Have you read the header on one of the emails your contacts received and confirmed that it came from your phone's IP address?
 
^Sent folder isn't a good check. I can send email from my computer and still load it in the sent folder on my phone. The IP address is a good one though.

I'm not gonna repeat what you don't want to hear.

Wait I lied. It's your email not your phone.
 
Instead of such overwhelming defensiveness of the iPhone, honestly I was expecting an intelligent response, something along the lines of the virus cannot spread within the phone, because of the sandbox / isolated userspace each app operates in. therefore deleting the email account will remove any malware, then it should be safe to re-enable the account.

Thinking about that as a possible solution, maybe I'll attempt deleting the account, instead of deleting the whole email app if possible or resetting the iPhone to factory new condition (a last resort IMO).

Obviously within minutes of the first flood of emails sent from my iPhone I changed all important passwords.

The facts; The virus/malware sends only a few outgoing email's, however cc's to many (I've counted 29 others per email). Where the offending virus/malware acquires these addresses is not known for certain at this time, though my instinct says from my primary email account inbox as opposed to my contact list. The outgoing email contains only a link, similar to the link provided in an earlier post, while similar each link has small differences in the address, also my name in the from fuel and as many as 29 addresses of friends and business acquaintances.

Three methods I've used so far to combat the spread or effects of this virus/malware are
first changing email account passwords
next removing outgoing server information from the email account
lastly place the iPhone in Airplane mode

changing email account passwords using another computer doesn't help much, because within say 12 hours of entering the new password in the iPhone's primary email account the flood of email repeats itself.

one other idea I had, change primary iPhone email accounts. if no one has any realistic suggestion am going to attempt creating an email alias to another email account and use it as the primary iPhone account.

Assuming I can maintain my privacy, I'll try to post a screenshot of the results for the disbelievers.

How about do a complete reset of your phone if you feel you have malware installed? No restore from backups either to see if the problem persists.
 
^Sent folder isn't a good check. I can send email from my computer and still load it in the sent folder on my phone. The IP address is a good one though.
Yes, Sent folder is a good check. If the emails actually come from your hacked email account, they will appear in the Sent folder for that account, whether you access the account on a computer or phone. If the account was merely spoofed, the emails will not appear in the Sent folder, because the email account was not used to send the messages.
 
op works for windows phone and is trying to get people to convert.. go home op no viruses here!!
 
Instead of such overwhelming defensiveness of the iPhone, honestly I was expecting an intelligent response, something along the lines of the virus cannot spread within the phone, because of the sandbox / isolated userspace each app operates in. therefore deleting the email account will remove any malware, then it should be safe to re-enable the account.

Thinking about that as a possible solution, maybe I'll attempt deleting the account, instead of deleting the whole email app if possible or resetting the iPhone to factory new condition (a last resort IMO).

Obviously within minutes of the first flood of emails sent from my iPhone I changed all important passwords.

The facts; The virus/malware sends only a few outgoing email's, however cc's to many (I've counted 29 others per email). Where the offending virus/malware acquires these addresses is not known for certain at this time, though my instinct says from my primary email account inbox as opposed to my contact list. The outgoing email contains only a link, similar to the link provided in an earlier post, while similar each link has small differences in the address, also my name in the from fuel and as many as 29 addresses of friends and business acquaintances.

Three methods I've used so far to combat the spread or effects of this virus/malware are
first changing email account passwords
next removing outgoing server information from the email account
lastly place the iPhone in Airplane mode

changing email account passwords using another computer doesn't help much, because within say 12 hours of entering the new password in the iPhone's primary email account the flood of email repeats itself.

one other idea I had, change primary iPhone email accounts. if no one has any realistic suggestion am going to attempt creating an email alias to another email account and use it as the primary iPhone account.

Assuming I can maintain my privacy, I'll try to post a screenshot of the results for the disbelievers.

It's technically impossible for clicking a link on the phone to infect the phone itself UNLESS you are jailbroken (even then its a stretch). the iPhone doesn't work like Windows or Android. If you click a link it cannot execute unsigned code and the code that can execute has to be signed through apple.. Worst case scenerio a link would prompt you to install an app using an enterprise certificate to sign the code. Since you make no mention of a prompt I can assume that isn't what happened.

Now, in the browser if you signed into say yahoo mail via mobile safari it might be possible for a link/webpage to load your email through the browsers saved credentials, but even that is highly unlikely.

Again it is technically IMPOSSIBLE to execute unsigned code from a webpage and even if you did somehow find a way to do this, you'd be sandboxed and not have access to mail credentials or the mail app to programatically send emails.

This is not a fanboy thing. It's simple fact. You are mistaken. Your phone doesn't have a virus.
 
How about do a complete reset of your phone if you feel you have malware installed? No restore from backups either to see if the problem persists.

If you have malware installed you've installed AN APP with it embedded in there. There's almost no apps that this would be the case for.

However if you want to do a HARD reset (reboot) Sleep/wake and HOME at same time until the Apple logo appears.
 
Yes, Sent folder is a good check. If the emails actually come from your hacked email account, they will appear in the Sent folder for that account, whether you access the account on a computer or phone. If the account was merely spoofed, the emails will not appear in the Sent folder, because the email account was not used to send the messages.

Exactly. While their presence in his Sent folder will not prove that his phone sent them, their absence from the Sent folder would definitely be suggestive. Ultimately, the answer is to get the full email header of one of the messages and figure out what IP address sent them.
 
It's technically impossible for clicking a link on the phone to infect the phone itself UNLESS you are jailbroken (even then its a stretch). the iPhone doesn't work like Windows or Android. If you click a link it cannot execute unsigned code and the code that can execute has to be signed through apple.. Worst case scenerio a link would prompt you to install an app using an enterprise certificate to sign the code. Since you make no mention of a prompt I can assume that isn't what happened.

Now, in the browser if you signed into say yahoo mail via mobile safari it might be possible for a link/webpage to load your email through the browsers saved credentials, but even that is highly unlikely.

Again it is technically IMPOSSIBLE to execute unsigned code from a webpage and even if you did somehow find a way to do this, you'd be sandboxed and not have access to mail credentials or the mail app to programatically send emails.

This is not a fanboy thing. It's simple fact. You are mistaken. Your phone doesn't have a virus.

Quoting for emphasis.

Except that the part about webpages reading your saved credentials is also impossible. Each tab is an isolated process, and the credential storage/filling won't fill in your password from another domain.
 
OP….once again, it is NOT your phone. Someone has hacked your email.

I had this happen once, years ago, before smartphones even existed. I was young, new to the internet, I was using an excite.com addy and had used the name of one of my cats for the password….big mistake, because I had talked about them online and used the same username everywhere…

Thankfully, it was just a junk email addy that I kept nothing important in and didn't have many contacts listed in.*
 
Quoting for emphasis.

Except that the part about webpages reading your saved credentials is also impossible. Each tab is an isolated process, and the credential storage/filling won't fill in your password from another domain.

Yeah I could see that being the case but those were the only ways I viewed as remotely possible. Didn't know the tabs were isolated. I was thinking the page itself could spoof the info out of a cookie or something perhaps but even that is a really big stretch. Either way the thread should be closed. My explanation is why he doesn't have a virus on his phone. Period.
 
As others have pointed out, your account has been compromised.

Not every bad thing that happens on a computing device is a virus or other malware.

Malware does happen... but not, to date, if you stick to the iTunes app store. If you jailbreak and download iffy stuff from other app repositories, then your mileage may vary.
 
Nope not jail broken.
I thought at first my iPhone or email accounts had been hacked but while possible is most likely not the case. If you had hacked someone's email why stop at replicating an email. Replication is a sign of automation.


First, I received an iMessage from myself.
Next I mistakenly selected the link within the iMessage.
Next, friends called to ask why they were on a group email listing.
Next, my email spam box began filling up with returned undeliverable email. On inspection each email contained only a link (each email contains a slightly different link from each other).
next on inspection of the outgoing email, each contained the link as described above, also note that each is sent to one individual and cc'd to 29 others (not yet verified that each email was limited to exactly 29 cc addresses).
Next my email provider took preventative measures stopping further access to my account until verified. After verification I changed passwords to all email accounts.
Next with the password change the iPhone which no longer able to access the primary email outgoing servers, the group email stopped.
Next within a few hours of entering the new password
In the iPhone's email setting the flood of outgoing email replication reappeared.
I immediately removed the outgoing server information from the iPhone's primary email account and restarted the iPhone.
Since then the mass email has stopped, but then my ability to sent email from my iPhone has also stopped.

next up, setting up a new email alias for use as the primary iPhone email account.
 
Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

Your email account was hacked. It has nothing to do with your iPhone.

If you still don't get it, start again from the first line.

I think you might need one more. I don't believe it has sunk in yet.
 
If you really believe you have the first ever virus on an iPhone why aren't you talking to Apple? Making a Genius Bar appointment? Why are you on here as if someone here could help you with something that has never happened before?
 
Nope not jail broken.
Then you can be certain it's not malware of any kind. Have you inspected the undeliverable mail messages to determine what IP address they were sent from? Several people have mentioned that, but you still haven't responded to that.
 
If this is still going on OP, you need to change your email password pronto.

Otherwise, whoever is sending emails from your account could theoretically lock you out of your own emails.

Also check any apps you've authorised to access your account (see here for instructions how to do this with Gmail).
 
You are speculating about an email related issue being related somehow to a device without providing any sort of evidence of such a link. You can't expect anyone to believe there is a problem with your phone with the information you've given.
The problem has nothing to do with your phone, it is related to your email account. Ask the email provider support on the matter.
 
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