Will virus carry over from old phone if I transfer old files to new phone?

[husseinHr]

A friend of mine is worried that her old phone's virus will get carried over to her new phone if she transfers the files. Is this something that can happen on mobile phones? And is it best to transfer the files using a USB and adapter or SD card or via a cloud storage solution like Google Drive or Mega? Is there an online cloud storage app that checks files for viruses as they upload/download?

[Origami Cactus]

If she reinstalls the same virus app on the new phone then yes.

If you only transfer photos/documents and reinstall the programs from the official store then there shouldnt be a problem. If you transfer the programs you can also transfer the virus.

 

What kind of files are we talking about here? If possible dont move apk's.

[simtransporter]

If you are just transfering perosnal data such as photos and videos and not apps, .apk, executables etc it's unlikely you will infect the other device if you had a virus. 

 

If you already use it or even have regular backups setup then the cloud storage solution would probably be the eaiset way to transfer your data, but it could take a while depending on the amount of data and bandwidth available.

 

If you want to be super paranoid about it you can transfer the files to a non-networked computer and then run a scan on the files you've copied.  Once you're happy they are safe you can copy them over to the new phone.

[Origami Cactus]

Also download malwarebytes to her new phone, so the same thing can't happen again.