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Comment by morgosmaci | Hacker News Reader

You would have to download the app they spammed with vibrates and let it install.

Thanks for the reply! This isn't very clear to me. I actually opened the link in a new tab with Firefox for Android, had Firefox ask me for permission to access my camera and mike(?), denied those and closed the tab as I read pascalmemories' comment i.e. I never actually saw the content, so "you would have to download the app they spammed with vibrates" doesn't mean anything to me. Perhaps that's a good thing? :)

I've turned off the phone for now, and it's not 6.0, rather it's 6.x (up to date with August 2016 patches IIRC), not sure if that makes a difference. I'm mostly worried about the malware being a drive-by download/infection.

I was browsing in Chrome with a brand new phone which thankfully did not have anything on it. Despite clearing all the app data (which normally cleans out browse-by if it's just annoying page javascript in my experience) the damn vibrate, play noises and throw multiple pop-ups just kept on coming and would not let me close them.

I had to resort to a factory wipe to clean it; it was not a great deal since it was a phone I'd literally today just taken out the box, but if it had been something I had data on and used for a while, it would have been a serious PITA.

I suspect the ad network malware pumper saw the visit spike and decided the traffic volume warranted an exploit delivery instead of their usual junk ad content.

So, if I start my phone and browse normally, and don't see, hear, or feel any popups, noises, or vibrations, I'm good? And perhaps I should clear out my Firefox app data? I shut it down because you mentioned root and malware, and if the malware can root a device, it probably can hide itself pretty well and make it impossible to get it out.

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