If we notice that our iPhone is too slow or behaving strangely, it’s worth it to find out how to delete the iPhone virus and if it is necessary to install an antivirus even on an Apple device (which is very unusual).
Unfortunately, many slowdowns are not due to viruses or malware for the iPhone, but to other factors (which we will talk about in a dedicated chapter).
How to remove malware on iPhone
Removing viruses is relatively simple on the iPhone, being a closed system, and therefore very protected from unauthorized interference (such as a smartphone virus can be). To remove a virus on iPhone just follow the tips in the following chapters.
Before continuing, we strongly recommend that you immediately back up the most important things on your phone (contacts, photos, images, videos, and more), by reading our guide How to backup the iPhone.
Remove non-App Store apps
If we have carried out the Jailbreak on our iPhone we may find ourselves with third-party apps not present on the App Store; these apps are not certified by Apple so it is better to remove them all, whether they are viruses or not.
To remove them, just hold down the app icon on one of the home screens, press on the item Delete the app, and then on Delete.
By deleting all the suspicious apps or apps we haven’t used for a while, we will recover space on our iPhone and eliminate the possible virus, without having to do anything else.
Eliminate the Jailbreak
Jailbreak is a common practice on iPhones but exposes the device to non-certified and therefore unsafe apps (as seen also above).
If we don’t know how to remove the Jailbreak, we recommend that you read our guide UnJailbreak iPhone without reinstalling iOS, so as to be able to effectively remove the change even without reinstalling the whole system (an awkward procedure since it will also delete all the changes applied so far).
Remove unrecognized VPN profiles
Some viruses on iPhone hide as VPN profiles, which are difficult to see and can divert all internet traffic, displaying advertisements and stealing our personal data. Even though these “secret” viruses seem so dangerous, they are very easy to remove!
Let’s open the app Settings, we press on the menu General and let’s get to the menu VPN.
From this menu, we turn off any active VPN by pressing the switch next to the item State, press on the suspicious VPN profile, and finally press on the item Delete VPN to delete it.
If we’re still not sure if the VPN has been cleared, we can do network settings reset by taking us on the path Settings -> General -> Reset and pressing on the item Reset Network Settings.
Doing so will cancel any effect of the VPN and we will be able to surf again without problems related to security and privacy.
Reset the iPhone
If all the previous methods have not solved the problem with our iPhone, it is advisable to immediately reset it, so as to restore the initial settings and be able to eliminate any hidden or well-rooted viruses in the operating system.
To quickly reset an iPhone let’s take the path Settings -> General -> Reset also seen previously and press on Initialize content and settings, in order to start the restore procedure.
On restoring the iPhone we talked in-depth in our guides on how Factory reset iPhone and iPad by erasing and restoring data is How to Restore Defaults (and Data) on iPhone and iPad.
Is it worth installing an antivirus on the iPhone?
After having seen all the methods to delete a virus or presumed one from our iPhone device, the question arises “but then do we need an antivirus also on the iPhone?”. The answer is easily understood by reading the previous chapters: if we install only the apps from the official store (App Store), we avoid installing non-certified third-party apps and only use safe browsers such as Safari or Chrome, the risk of catching an iPhone virus is very rare, making the installation of an antivirus completely useless.
If we really want to be safe and protect our iPhone, we recommend that you install Avast Security and Protection, which, in addition to intercepting the few specific viruses for iPhone, checks the security of the Wi-Fi networks we connect to and blocks dangerous pages on the Internet, making it virtually impossible to infect the iPhone in our possession.
Conclusions
While viruses are very rare on the iPhone, it is worth taking a look at the methods for removing any threats on this device so that you can respond to sudden slowdowns or senseless restarts.
If our iPhone slows down it is not always the fault of a virus, since these symptoms can appear even when the internal memory is low or completely full; in these cases, we advise you to read our guide iPhone space management: empty memory and full storage.
To increase the security of our iPhone, let’s also make sure to install all the updates, as also seen in our article How to update an iPhone.