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Can an Email account have a virus?

ZingXao

Well-Known Member
Mar 11, 2011
160
5
Is it possible or not?

On my old phone, I was signed into Gmail. A friend sent me a link and it took me to a site I didn't want to be on. I came off the site, cleared history and cookies etc. When that phone started to act strange, I moved my SD card, SIM and the Gmail account to another Android phone.

From the link that was sent to me, could anything have infected the SD card, SIM or my Gmail account? Or are they all okay and clean to use?
 
I've just bought the Nexus 4, and obviously my SD card won't be going in there, it's stayed in my old phone. I haven't transferred my SIM across either, because I'm moving network, and the old SIM is a full sized one, not a micro SIM.

Now the problem is, I've emailed all of my contacts to myself from the phone with the SD card in. The email address it's been sent to is the email I use for my Google account, but now am wary of downloading my contacts from that account, because it was emailed from the phone with the SD card in.

What do I do? Is the email account and vCard that in the email okay and safe to download to my Nexus or have I lost all of my numbers now??
 
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Sorry for the double post. Just don't wanna mess up my new phone.

So I have my Nexus 4 with no SIM card in, and obviously no SD card. I have logged into my Google account on it, along with my email. My old phone with the suspect SD card, are still logged into my Gmail account, the same one as I've just logged in to with the Nexus 4. From my old phone I've deleted all emails, including ones to myself were I've emailed my contacts through. I didn't save any contacts from the email on to my Nexus. I've wiped my SD card on the old phone and scanned it with avast!, came back clean. Can I now email my contacts to myself and then download them to my Nexus or will I need to input them all manually?
 
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If the old phone is an android, did you sync the contacts with your Gmail account? If so you can just sync them with the new phone, no need to send a vcf. That would be safest.

I don't think you need to worry about mailing a vcard file with your contacts anyway. That's a data file that is read into your contacts storage app, not an application which you install and which could contain other stuff. A malformed vcf just won't import properly - I can't see how it could actually install malware itself. And you can always look at the vcf on another computer if you want (Android malware won't bother a windows/mac/linux computer). Plus I've never heard of an actual android email virus.

So I reckon opening a vcf with the contacts app should be ok. If you get an unexpected application installation dialog you should cancel.
 
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Well just to be safe, I did a factory reset on my old Android phone so it wasn't linked to my Gmail/Google account. I did a factory reset to my Nexus 4 to start again, and then linked my Google account to it - and because I'd deleted all emails and stuff I've essentially got a fresh new Gmail account.

I'll just input my contact manually, I don't use half of them anyway.

So, would a factory reset remove any possible viruses from either phone? And now I've wiped all emails from my Gmail account is that safe/clean whatever to use as my Google play account on my Nexus 4 again?

Sorry, I'm just really paranoid about viruses :/
 
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Okay cool.

One more thing then I'll stop asking questions regarding this haha.

Android Beam. So my brother has a Nexus 7, and I had them next to each other comparing the screens side by side. I didn't touch them back to back.

I was on his browser and noticed he'd been on some dodgy stuff. He's a teenager after all. Now, I'm wondering whether holding my Nexus 4 and his 7 next to each other could have activated Android Beam, or do they need to be touching back to back? And what kind of content can be sent through?

I just would like to keep my device clean and running perfectly, and just hate the thought of something transferring from his device to mine. From the circumstances provided, is that possible?

Again, this is my last question. Thanks.
 
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You'll need someone with a newer device than me to answer that one - I've no experience with NFC. Though I'd be a little surprised if you could transfer stuff without confirmation (unless you can set it to just accept anything from a particular device without asking questions), as that would seem a huge security fail. But I'd wait for someone whose actually used these devices to give a more informed answer.
 
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Okay cool.

One more thing then I'll stop asking questions regarding this haha.

Android Beam. So my brother has a Nexus 7, and I had them next to each other comparing the screens side by side. I didn't touch them back to back.

I was on his browser and noticed he'd been on some dodgy stuff. He's a teenager after all. Now, I'm wondering whether holding my Nexus 4 and his 7 next to each other could have activated Android Beam, or do they need to be touching back to back? And what kind of content can be sent through?

I just would like to keep my device clean and running perfectly, and just hate the thought of something transferring from his device to mine. From the circumstances provided, is that possible?

Again, this is my last question. Thanks.

Both people have to activate and accept the android beam for it to go through. There's also some pretty loud beeps involved.

It would be very obvious if any files were transferred.
 
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