On Feb 16, 2025, at 8:20 AM, tim meidroth via groups.io <timmeidroth@...> wrote:
my use of "clearly" malicious and "clearly" not from apple were conclusions made in haste because sometimes suspicious-looking things turn out to be innocuous...i think this probably is the case here,
I appreciate that you were worried about what you saw, but you might want to be careful about posting such absolute conclusions.
I¡¯ve never heard of *ANYONE* encountering *ANYTHING* that was truly malicious on an iPhone. The worst that I¡¯ve heard of is someone getting an advertisement on their iPhone (offered up by either a Web site or as part of a game with ads) that looked like it was an alert that you had been infected with something. Even that, in and of itself, couldn¡¯t actually do anything malicious. It could only try to scare you into calling a phone number or volitionally buying software that you didn¡¯t need and really didn¡¯t want.
I¡¯m on one Apple product discussion forum with well over a quarter million subscribers. It¡¯s been around for as long as the iPhone has. There isn¡¯t a single legitimate post on that list of anyone being hit by any sort of iPhone malware.
Every single program on the iPhone is sandboxed. No software, no matter how malicious, even if it somehow got onto your iPhone, can access, change, or even scan your OS, or other software on your phone. Your iPhone is pretty much locked down, unless you do something that I¡¯m sure that you don¡¯t even have a clue how to do, like jailbreak your phone. Your Macintosh is a really really safe computer. Your iPhone is a level or two even safer than your Macintosh.
I¡¯d say that whatever you might encounter on your iPhone that you don¡¯t understand, your first thought shouldn¡¯t be that it is malware. Your iPhone is that safe.
***As an interesting side note, I¡¯m occasionally asked if it is a wise idea to purchase anti-virus software for the iPhone ¡°just to be safe.¡± My answer is that *ALL* anti-virus software for the iPhone is a scam, and you shouldn¡¯t throw your money away on it. How can I make such a blanket statement? Well, unless you live in the EU, you can only download software for your iPhone from the App Store. Apple vets all software allowed in the App Store. Apple requires that all software be sandboxed. That means that any anti-virus software that you purchase from the App Store is absolutely *INCAPABLE* of scanning your iPhone for malware. In other words, it¡¯s impossible to meet Apple¡¯s guidelines for software and create a functional anti-virus program. So all such programs are worthless, and a scam.
Folks who live in the EU have iPhones that have access to purchase software from other sources than the App Store. But if you value your iPhone¡¯s security, you shouldn¡¯t. Having all of your software meet Apple¡¯s guidelines, and be vetted by Apple, is invaluable as far as security goes. (It¡¯s a bit different for the Macintosh, and we can discuss that if anyone wants to.)
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Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)
Essential But Hard To Find Macintosh Software and Advice
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