virus detected-real or fake?

Technical Q&A

Topic summary

A user received a suspicious email claiming their Shopify store was infected with “DC-342# Virus” due to a misconfigured robots.txt file, affecting TLS security and SEO. The email requested payment for “DPT and TRG calibration tools” to resolve the issue.

Community consensus: This is a scam

Key red flags identified:

  • Email came from a Gmail.com address, not an official Shopify.com domain
  • Shopify never charges for security fixes or requires purchasing external tools
  • “DPT and TRG calibration tools” are fabricated terms that don’t exist in Shopify’s ecosystem
  • Shopify’s closed platform architecture makes such malware infections highly unlikely
  • Misconfiguring robots.txt cannot cause malware infections

Recommended actions:

  • Ignore and mark the email as spam
  • Avoid clicking any links in the message
  • Report suspicious emails directly to Shopify’s official support team for verification

The original poster confirmed the Gmail domain detail and thanked the community for preventing them from falling victim to the scam.

Summarized with AI on October 29. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

I received an email a few days ago from Shopify and referred me to a shopify technician to resolve it. It said:

‘Our system has detected the presence of malware (DC-342# Virus) affecting your store, caused by a misconfigured robots.txt file. This issue is impacting both your TLS security and SEO settings, which would harm your store’s long-term performance and security.’

I have contacted this technician (he does have a shopify email address) and he said that i need to purchase DPT and TRG calibration tools at a cost. Is this something real or am I been tricked?

help

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2

Hey @PrayerandBead

Shopify usually never email something like that and it’s most probably a scam email because shopify would only email you from “shopify.com” domain other than that any other domains like “gmail.com” is always a scam email and there’s nothing to worry about in that and you can ignore it and mark it as spam.

Best Regards,

Moeed

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3

ahh i didn’t look at that small detail! it was indeed a gmail.com email. thank you, you saved me from this scam!

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4

This is a scam.

  • Shopify is a closed ecosystem, which is nearly impossible to “hack” in a classic understanding.

  • You can’t get malware by misconfiguring robots.txt, no matter what you write in it

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5

@PrayerandBead It sounds scammy to me and if the email came from an account ending with “Gmail.com” then that is a pro-tip that it’s from a scammer most likely. Just ignore and avoid clicking any links from there

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6

Hi @PrayerandBead

This is definitely a scam. Shopify does not require you to buy any tools to fix security issues.

No such thing as “DPT and TRG calibration tools” – These terms don’t exist in Shopify’s ecosystem.

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7

The easiest way to recognize if it is a real virus or not is to report to Shopify Team and after their verification, you shall know whether it is true or false.