Do you see a popup message saying your Mac is infected with viruses? This popup message may appear in your browser (Safari or Chrome etc). Specifically this popup message says:
Your system is infected with 3 viruses! Our security check found traces of 2 malware and 1 spyware/phishing. System damage: 28.1%. Immediate removal required.
The immediate removal of the viruses is required to prevent further system damage, loss of Apps, Photos or other files. Traces of 1 phishing/spyware were found on your Mac with OSX.
Personal and banking information are at risk.
To avoid more damage click on “Scan Now” immediately. Our deep scan will provide help immediately!
1 minute and 29 seconds remaining before damage is permanent. (SCAN NOW)
The alert is not coming from Apple or Apple Care. Do not call the number or do not click Scan Now. You should not interact with pop-ups or webpages that seem to take over your screen. These web sites and messages are designed to steal your personal information. Just ignore everything what the message says and do the following…
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, your Mac is not “infected with (3) viruses!” It’s just a phishing attempt. Never input any information online or via the phone.
You don’t necessarily need to force-quit Safari.
Quit Safari while holding down the Option key, whether you quit from the menu, the keyboard, or the pop-up menu on the Dock. The next time you launch Safari, it does not reopen the tabs from the last session; it starts with a blank browser window.
—Or—
Shut down Safari as normal, then restart it while holding down the Shift key, whether you restart Safari from the Dock, the Launchpad, or the Application folder. Safari starts without reopening the tabs from the last session; it starts with a blank browser window
Then delete the last two or three entries in your history.
That should do it.
@Ken On my Mac when I hold Option and click Safari, Quit, it shows “Quit and Keep Windows” which opens up the last tabs I had open when I relaunch Safari. That doesn’t seem like what is needed when it’s possibly an infected page that is throwing up the fake message. Does your Safari work that way? When I hold Option and right-click the Safari icon in the tray, THEN I get Force Quit which will then ask me if I want to reopen the windows from the last session.
Sometimes, if I’m either not too busy, or angry at whoever sent it, when I reopen safari, I would have a look at the history and see if I can find out the URL this came from.
Who in the heck uses Safari it’s like the ones that think they need to use Internet Explorer.
WAKE UP PEOPLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So Fred, what do you recommend?
Internet Exploder is from Microsoft, and they’re never safe, ever.
So, I recommend you use this awesome new browser I found called EDGE. It’s great!
WAKE UP PEOPLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good joke FRED.
Actually I’ve heard good things about this browser but the Mac version is very early in development so perhaps I’ll give it a bit more time before I put it through its paces.
Here’s a link to techradar about the browser.
https://www.techradar.com/au/news/you-can-now-install-microsoft-edge-on-macos
Likewise I think the latest version is 1.X which is a bit “newish” so I’m going to wait a bit.
I immediately ask if I can use a credit card , or if they need my checking acct info. I want to be fixed now.
Nobody uses Edge on Windows, why should we want to use it on our Macs?
And Microsoft has given up on browsers. Their new one is based on Google’s Chrome.