Gmail Virus Dropping Skull Emoji Into Accounts, Google Responds

Some Gmail account users are getting a scary surprise when they opened their inbox today. According to The Verge, some users saw a skull emoji and cross bones in the upper right corner of the screen when checking emails. Users that move the cursor over the skull or “hover” over it saw one of the three phrases, "Component Spy," "Channel Spy" and "Data Spy."

The creepy spyware could be an attempt to recruit google developers by hackers, The Verge reports. The skulls are appearing to non-html version Gmail users that function with Google Chrome, Firefox and Edge browsers.

The pop up skull has been an ongoing problem, according to frustrated users posting in the Gmail Help Forum Thread.

Andy B. a Google employee that handles Gmail, posted to assure users that the problem should be cleared up immediately. He posted the response on Dec. 1, assuring users that the skulls should automatically go away.

"Just want to confirm this issue should now be fixed after a refresh of Gmail," Andy B. wrote. "Many thanks again for your reports and patience while we worked to fix this, and apologies for the inconvenience. I do want to reiterate the issue was purely cosmetic and did not affect any other aspect of Gmail."

Google isn’t the only company having a problem with nasty viruses. In the fall Apple’s App Store was plagued with a virus that was leaving malware on iOS devices. The XcodeGhost virus affected about 500 million users and almost 50 apps including WeChat, NetEase Cloud Music, WinZip, Didi Chuxing, Railway 12306, China Unicom Mobile Office and Tonghuashun. According to Macrumors.com, devices infected with XcodeGhost malware had information copied, encrypted and uploaded data to command and control (C2) servers run by hackers through the HTTP protocol. Apple updated apps and cleaned up the app store to get rid of the malware.