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VirginMedia distributing viruses!

Lil-Squabbit
Up to speed

As the title says.

VirginMedia are now distributing malicious malware/ viruses via their Telly Tablets. The viruses in question are:

  • COM.WAGD.SMARTER
  • COM.WAGD.XIAOAN
  • COM.WAGD.GEM

Apparently, this is due to an infection on one of their update servers which hard codes the malware into the system software. This means that even if you do a hard reset on the device, the malicious products will be reinstalled too.

What are VirginMedia doing about this as I am sure we cant be the only people that are having this issue.

This is worrying that a major broadband supplier is letting these malware/viruses run rampant through their products. Bad form VirginMedia, bad form!

What are you going to do about this? 

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Lil-Squabbit is soooooo NOT amused!!!!
193 REPLIES 193

Hi All,

I just wanted to pop a message on here so you know we are not ignoring the posts. 

I have picked this up and have emailed our Internet Security team to try and find out more about this. Once I hear back I will be in touch 🙂

I appreciate your patience. 

Thanks,

Kath_F
Forum Team

New around here? Check out the do's and don'ts, in our Community FAQs


Hi All,

I just wanted to pop a message on here so you know we are not ignoring the posts. 

I have picked this up and have emailed our Internet Security team to try and find out more about this. Once I hear back I will be in touch 🙂

I appreciate your patience. 

Thanks,

Kath_F
Forum Team

New around here? Check out the do's and don'ts, in our Community FAQs


I think we can rule out a false positive. The antivirus software picks up on the virus. At the same time unwanted apps are downloaded  into the device and the device is not operating as it should.

Thank you. I look forward to hearing from the team regarding this issue.

We are fighting a daily battle with this malicious software, having to uninstall all the malware and apps that are sideloaded onto the tablet every day.

Only this morning we had to close down 57 tabs that had opened on chrome due to the virus, it's getting tedious & frustrating to say the least. It's only a matter of time before it downloads a key logger or trojan that can steal banking details or passwords, then all hell will break loose 😢

Callen & Naomi 

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Lil-Squabbit is soooooo NOT amused!!!!

20210408_082050.jpg

Switched on my tablet this morning. Ran a scan using avast anti virus software and it found malware. Some can be removed only to reappear again. One cannot be removed.

Since taking the pic avast has reported even other malware!

Chrome browser has opened 3 unwanted pages, and this is just within the first 5 mins.

This makes the tablet unusable and if I did use the tablet I would be concerned about data breaches.

Feeling really disappointed and let down as I got the tablet as part of a promotion with my phone and I am still paying for it. So I am still paying for something that to all intents and purposes is now useless. 

I am enquiring about having the tablet flashed, but after doing so, would the problem only return when the tablet searches for updates?

I have lost all confidence in this tablet which was once a brilliant product and which met my needs.

 

 

Me too. They just reappear. I have had to disconnect it from the internet. Coincidentally or maybe not, i have had a couple of bogus call claiming to be from Virgin media claiming there is unusual activity on my router.

I have had no communication from virgin (apart from this forum), but I would view the communication you have had allegedly from virgin as very suspicious. Probably scammers trying there luck.

Just to add another voice to this. 

Our Telly Tablet has also become infected with the Xaioan, Gem and Smart apps.  (It's also attempted to install a few trojans while it's at it). 

Factory resets do not work. 

"SystemUpdate" has been reported by AVG as being infected, and we're unable to uninstall it.   

(I'm assuming that an infected update has been pushed out recently as we have not installed any new apps, and only really use it for TV and YouTube). 

I really do not want to throw this tablet in the bin but it's now three years old and out of warranty. 

(I'd be happy to flash it with a standard android rom if it fixed things, but I've had no luck finding one). 

newapollo
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Do you feel brave?

If you are feeling brave, and have seen another tablet you like/can afford, and aren't afraid of breaking your VM telly tablet completely then you can use this method.

This roots (and doesn't contain the virus and trojans currently affecting the updates) on the telly tablet to install the Android version 7 update from  xda-developers  android/development/twrp-virgin-telly-tablet 

Then you can try to flash over the twrp (root) uninstall-twrp-to-recovery - read all the posts here and links,  how-to-uninstall-twrp-to-recover  - paying particular attention to this one https://amazeinvent.com/how-to-uninstall-twrp/ 

This is based on the  LF141.N0.V30.24.RC-V03 firmware .which is Android 7. 

I'm afraid I haven't got a VM telly tablet to practice on.  I've done similar on Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets, and Nexus tablets, although I bricked the first Galaxy Tab (the original 7 inch with simcard and wifi) that I tried  - maybe because I tried 6 or 7 different variations to update the firmware to android versions that weren't officially supported by Samsung.

Please remember I don't work for VM and doing the above is at your own risk. Also, if you can't remove the root then apps such as TV Go, other VM and Sky apps etc may not work

Dave
I don't work for Virgin Media.
I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge.
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I don't think I am brave enough to try that at the moment. Firstly if things go wrongI don't want to end up bricking my tablet,  and secondly if I root the tablet then the app i use the most which is  virgin go will not work. 

Just hoping that virgin can provide a means of getting the tablet up and running. Well I can always hope!