What to do if your Samsung Galaxy S9 keeps showing the virus infection error (easy steps)

When your new Samsung Galaxy S9 starts popping up the ‘virus infection’ error or notice, most likely there’s an app or two that carries a malware, not necessarily a virus. And you know what? The error itself is the malware or at least, the app that it’s embedded in. For popups like this to show, they should be activated or triggered and more often than not it’s an app that does it. Find out what that application is and you’ll fix this issue.

In this post, I will walk you through in finding the app that’s causing this problem. Once you find it, you must uninstall it so that it won’t be able to cause any more problems to your phone. If you’re one of the owners of this device and are currently bugged by this issue, then continue reading as you may find this article helpful.

Before going further, if you found this post because you were trying to find a solution to your problem, then try to visit our Galaxy S9 troubleshooting page as we’ve already addressed most of the commonly reported issues with the phone. We’ve already provided solutions to some of the problems reported by our readers so try to find issues that are similar with yours and use the solutions we suggested. If they don’t work for you and if you need further assistance, fill up our Android issues questionnaire and hit submit.

How to remove the virus infection message in your Galaxy S9

It is important that you act immediately the moment you get notified about a ‘virus infection’ in your Galaxy S9 because first, apps from good developers don’t have any issues with official Android ROMs; second, your phone’s performance will be affected sooner or later. Don’t worry though, this problem is pretty minor and you can get rid of the app that brings along a malware to your phone in no time. With all that being said, here’s what I suggest you do about this problem…

Reboot your Galaxy S9 in Safe mode

All third-party apps are temporarily disabled in safe mode and all malware are attached to these kinds of apps. Running your phone up in safe mode will contain the virus or malware as its trigger is disabled. This is how you run your S9 in safe mode:

  1. Turn the device off.
  2. Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen appearing on the screen.
  3. When SAMSUNG appears on the screen, release the Power key.
  4. Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
  5. Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
  6. When Safe mode appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, release the Volume down key.

While in this environment, find out which app serves as the trigger of the malware and uninstall it. Go after the app you used when the error popped up and here’s how you uninstall it from your device:

  1. From the Home screen, swipe up on an empty spot to open the Apps tray.
  2. Tap Settings > Apps.
  3. Tap the desired application in the default list.
  4. To display preinstalled apps, tap Menu > Show system apps.
  5. Tap UNINSTALL > OK.

Running the phone in safe mode and uninstalling an app are pretty easy to do but the challenging part here is determining which app is causing the problem. You may have to uninstall more than one app to get rid of the virus infection error. After uninstalling some apps, reboot the phone in normal mode to know if the pop up would still show up and if it does, then you have no other choice but to do the next procedure.

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Backup your important files and data and then reset your phone

The problem is actually just in the app level but since we don’t know which app is causing this problem, then we have to bring the phone back to its factory default settings by doing the master reset. However, make sure that you make a backup of files you don’t want to lose because you may never be able to retrieve them after the reset.

After the backup, disable your Galaxy S9’s Factory Reset Protection by removing your google account from your phone so that you won’t be locked out after the reset. After this, feel free to reset your phone:

  1. Turn off the device.
  2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
  3. When the green Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  4. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset’.
  5. Press Power button to select.
  6. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
  7. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
  8. When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
  9. Press the Power key to restart the device.

After the reset, don’t install apps that have bad reviews or those that mimic the names of popular apps.

I hope that we’ve been able to help you with this post one way or another. If you have other concerns you want to share with us, then feel free to contact us anytime or leave a comment below.

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