Computer Viruses… Mac???
Ok, i was surfing on the internet and this pop up (i had my pop up blocker down for im) came up and said your computer may be infected with spyware would you like to do a free scan? I clicked cancel (it was very obviously a scam) and it started downloading. I tried to quit it, which didn’t work. It then (while still loading) said i had spyware. I held down the power button and my mac shut down just before it finished loading. Am i now infected with some virus??? I have a mac and use the tiger os. I reset safari and then randomly apple sent me a message to update my security. Help, why did this happen, and did shutting my mac down cancel the download? Thanks very much.
I looked and can’t find a downloaded file anywhere if it helps.
Thank you all very much. I checked my download window and there was nothing there that I didn’t download myself. Thanks again.
Nothing to worry about there.
To the best of my knowledge, there are still no viruses, spyware, adware, trojans or worms for Mac OS X. It is most likely that this popup is spyware for Windows and will not work on your Mac at all.
In addition, even if you did successfully download a virus that worked on the Mac, Safari won’t automatically open the file. You would still have to find it and double-click on it to infect yourself. You would also have to enter your password to allow the virus to install itself.
The security update was one that all Mac users got. There have been two in the last few weeks that I remember but you may have got them both at the same time.
Shutting down your Mac will most definitely cancel the download. It will also lose any unsaved work you had open. A safer “panic action” is the “force quit”. Hold down the Apple key and the Option key together and hit the Escape key. This will open up a little window that will allow you to instantly quit any application. That way you can stop Safari doing anything, no matter what weird state it may be in, without quitting all of your other applications. Usually, a normal quit will work as well. Hold down the Apple key and hit “Q”.
While I like Safari, Firefox has better popup blocking (successfully blocks more popups), more granular popup blocking (block this website but not that one), better support from websites and some other nice security based plugins such as AdBlock plus and NoScript. I use both browsers depending on what kind of site I am viewing.
You can find a list of all the files you have downloaded in either browser by going for the “Downloads window”. In Firefox this is under Tools -> Downloads (or Apple-J) and in Safari it is Window -> Downloads (or Apple-Option-L).
Lastly, Spybot: Search & Destroy is a Windows application. It will not work on your Mac.
You CAN purchase anti-spyware solutions for the Mac (or even get a free one from ClamX-AV) but they are all essentially searching for Windows viruses so that you don’t accidentally infect someone else. I wouldn’t bother with them unless one of your Windows-using friends complains that you are sending them infected files.
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