Security concern after accidentally previewing scam link

For peace of mind, I want to make sure my device and personal information will be okay. In imessage, I got a message with my name in it from a company saying that i had a parcel from them which was delivered. I knew it was a scam, but I wanted to test the link in Virustotal because the message itself seemed a bit more official than most (the contact came up with the company's name rather than just its phone number, the message used my first name, and the links themselves didn't look as sketchy as usual scam links). Even if it did come up as being not malicious I wouldn't have visited the website anyways because I am paranoid like that.


I was on my ipad at the time, and long-pressed to copy the link. What I didn't remember was that long-pressing on links shows a preview of the website. I immediately realised my mistake and clicked off of it before the preview fully loaded. Virustotal showed one vendor flagging the link as malicious when i pasted it in. I panicked and deleted all my history and website data on my ipad and my iphone, restarted my ipad, changed my apple password... No suspicious profiles in VPNs or devices i don't recognise. Will I be okay?

iPad, iPadOS 18

Posted on Dec 5, 2025 10:00 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 5, 2025 10:05 PM

Yes, you will be completely okay.

link preview in iMessage or Safari cannot install malware, cannot access your device, and cannot steal your data. iPadOS is sandboxed and does not allow drive-by infections, even if the website is malicious.

You did not visit the full site — you only triggered a preview panel. That preview is isolated in a secure process. You did everything right, and your device is safe.

4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 5, 2025 10:05 PM in response to aliilaa

Yes, you will be completely okay.

link preview in iMessage or Safari cannot install malware, cannot access your device, and cannot steal your data. iPadOS is sandboxed and does not allow drive-by infections, even if the website is malicious.

You did not visit the full site — you only triggered a preview panel. That preview is isolated in a secure process. You did everything right, and your device is safe.

Security concern after accidentally previewing scam link

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