It seems my iPhone has been blocked by the usmarshals.gov popup virus. Yesterday I was just browsing through safari and reading an article that we were assigned to research. Suddenly, a pop-up from usmarshals.gov appeared on my iPad, demanding a fine, claiming that I was watching ‘illegal porn’ and that if I don’t pay them $500 using a prepaid MyVanilla card they will turn over all my information to police. It scared me so much so I turned off my iPad immediately. When I turned it back on, the same pop up came up again! Is this message real or fake? I can’t seem to get rid of it. Why do i get a pop up about us marshal service when i am watching porn? I received a us marshals popup on iPhone demanding money…how do i remove this virus? Any help will be highly appreciated.
Now a new mobile virus posing as an U.S. Marshals alert is freezing the Internet on iPhone/iPad and causing many problems to Apple users all over the world. Usually the infected users will be displayed by a shocking usmarshals.gov popup virus that claims the owners have illegal materials on the device or they are detected to look at illegal pornography or download child pornography videos. These ‘illegal’ actions will lead to huge fines and possible jail time, therefore a $500 fine is needed to be paid with My Vanilla card in 72 hours in order to correct the violation. Although the pop up seems real, it is just a fake message to get you pay money – It’s a con game. The U.S. Marshals or whoever would never contact you to tell you that you are in trouble by just simply sending you a pop-up on the web browser. Don’t ever trust any information on this site or even pay the ransom. The pop up is 100% fake and it belongs to Ransomware. It is as similar as Paysafecard virus which is very popular ransomware that also pretends to be the national police or organization and asks people to pay a certain amount of fine in order to unlock the device.
Ransomware has been around for more than a decade. But the past three years has seen a steep rise in incidents involving the programs, which often infect users via malicious email attachments or drive by downloads from compromised websites or malicious web ads. This virus uses javascript to hijack Internet web browser and blocks victims from going online when it’s on the Apple products. It can be installed on Chrome browser or Safari browser without any permission. Once running, one will no longer get access to the Internet because of an usmarshals.gov popup virus. The virus locks people out of their device as a penalty for online crimes like downloading copyright-protected music, watching porno sites or distributing illegal contents. Thus, victims will see a warning on the browser like:
Country:
Region:
City:
Your Location:
Operating System: iOSYou are accused of viewing/storage and/or dissemination of banned pornography (child pornography/zoophilia/rape etc.) …
On the warning page, victims will also be able to see personal information like IP address, a few numbers from contacts or even their own photo because the virus has the ability to turn on front-facing camera and capture user’s image without knowledge. It threatens unwary users if they refuse to pay the ransom in 72 hours, all data will be submitted to the police. Ways of payment are also stated on the warning page. It requires users to buy a My Vanilla prepaid card, load it with $500 and enter the code to unlock the browser. Otherwise Apple ID and the whole device will be blocked forever and the worse is that criminal case will be opened. Victims are not allowed to close the usmarshals.gov popup virus message and the only thing they can do is to click “OK” option which is at the bottom of this fake U.S. Marshals message but it won’t do anything to close the page.
“Ok. So basically I was on twitter and then all of a sudden this usmarshals.gov pop up message appears on my iPad saying that my iPad has been blocked for apparently violating copyright and related right law. It says that I have been watching child porn which I know for a fact that I haven’t, and says that I have been illegally downloading music which I also know I haven’t. It says that I have to pay a fine of $500 using My Vanilla prepaid card. I have read that this is a scam but I don’t understand why this has come up. I tried to erase all the content on my iPad out of fear, but when I went to erase the content I received a message that said that it could not erase because iCloud was not responding. What should I do? Will the scammers got any of my information? Do you have any tips on how I can make sure they didn’t get anything? I am hoping that someone can walk me through to get rid of this virus. Thanks.”
As mentioned above, usmarshals.gov is simply an obnoxious browser pop-up, displayed via JavaScript and it is not sent from U.S. Marshals or other authorities. Don’t rush to pay for the fine even if you are under a pretty awful situation that you cannot use your phone or iPad. All you really need to do is to get rid of usmarshals.gov popup virus manually from your device as soon as possible.
We used to think that Apple iOS gadgets were pretty immune to viruses and malware. Sadly, over the past year hackers have turned their attention to our mobile gear. Usually, the installation of Usmarshals.gov Scam Virus can be completed in a short time and then it pops up immediately to lock your iphone or ipad without signs if you visit a phishing site, open a junk e-mail attachment, click on an unknown link or download an application from an unsafe source. You will be easily get infected by this virus after you jailbreak your device.
It will block your Internet access once it is downloaded.
It will pretend itself as a legitimate warning to lock you out of Safari or Chrome browser.
It will not let you exit the blocked page even you have restarted the device a million times.
It can block all types of antivirus apps.
1. This message can run on iPhone, iPad, iPod or other Apple devices.
2. Don’t pay for anything or provide your personal information to this hoax, it won’t help unlock Safari/Chrome, but just waste your money.
3. Currently antivirus apps are unable to detect or remove this malware.
4. There is no anti-malware software that can detect 100% of the malware out there.
Since viruses are quite inevitable, there are some tips you can avoid being fallen into this scam in the future:
1. Be careful of downloading applications in the internet because many of them are just cloned applications. Visit legitimate app stores like Apple Store because it filters out the reliable application from what’s not reliable. Most viruses are from gaming and anti-virus applications which are forged. Before downloading an application, try to read some customer reviews so that you will be assured that it is truly a trusted app. Stick with apps from App Store and don’t jailbreak your device and install apps from third-parties.
2. Be cautious at opening attachments thru MMS, SMS messages and e-mails because you might open an unknown attachment from unknown sender. Never open any attachments which are suspicious to you.
3. Don’t open your Bluetooth connection when not in need. It would be easy for the virus to go inside the phone’s application and destroy the phone’s performance.
4. Read the permissions. Every app you install has to declare its permissions, meaning the app lists what it will have access to on your phone. Don’t just click OK without reading what the app will do.
usmarshals.gov popup virus uses javascript to block user’s Internet access and prevent them from going online properly. It uses scare tactic to deceive people into paying the ransom without unblocking their device. Obviously it is a hoax. The virus rapidly spreads over the Internet and has infected thousands of devices at an alarming rate. There is no anti-malware apps that can delete the virus automatically. Worse still it won’t go away unless you have removed all its components step by step. Even in some cases it may disappear itself for a while to let you get Internet access back, but your device is still unsafe. It is still a threat for your privacy. To completely get this off iPhone or iPad, you can contact YooCare PC experts 24/7 online for help right now.
Published by on June 1, 2016 9:54 am, last updated on July 8, 2016 2:40 am
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