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I am totally new to Signal messenger. I have just received a contact request, without a text, and just with a bin file of 13 KB in the attachment. I do not know the strange nickname which is 4-letters short, with a capital letter at the beginning and which does not give you any hint of a meaning.

I do not know the phone number, though it is at least a number of my country, and I would not be astonished if someone just tried to connect when I am new there.

Main question: How to react to this?

Sub-questions could be:

How can I ask this person back to explain who she is without accepting the question to connect?

Or if I need to connect for this purpose:

  • can the bin file be dangerous and
  • is the mere contact already possibly revealing something personal about me that I do not want to share with any marketing or whatever bot?
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  • Is this on smartphone or PC?
    – harrymc
    Commented Jan 21, 2021 at 11:19
  • @harrymc iPhone, but I think Signal should be the same on any device.
    – questionto42
    Commented Jan 21, 2021 at 11:30
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    I would ignore and delete this contact. bin-files under linux, macos and ios are the same as exe-file under windows, so it's probably malware of some kind.
    – Oliver R.
    Commented Jan 21, 2021 at 11:42
  • @OliverR. Good to know that. First I thought I could just keep that request alive and wait, and that the bin might be kind of a card sent with it, but since bin is equal to exe, this is clearly insecure. This attack may try to find completely new people on Signal who are quick and unexperienced enough to accept such a thing and look up the attachment. Thank you, I have ignored and deleted the user.
    – questionto42
    Commented Jan 21, 2021 at 12:55
  • @OliverR. could you please post an answer with the comment that you gave?
    – questionto42
    Commented May 3, 2021 at 11:54

1 Answer 1

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Ignore and delete this contact.

"bin"-files under Linux, macOS and iOS are the same as "exe"-files under Windows. It is probably malware.

The helpful comment brought the answer.

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