new mac threat I found the other day.

trying this post again. seems the first one vanished when I hit post?

was web surfing the other day. got redirected to this. was using firefox 21. older version. wont let my browser get that outdated anymore. 22 yrs using macs this is a first time seeing something like this. it looked legit at first glance since I was using firefox 21. until you see the URL. then I knew it was fake. a new mac user would not know and would probably click OK.

would this be spyware or virus or something else? not sure what you could call this type of attack.

"would this be spyware or virus or something else?"

I'm a consumer and not a provider on this forum but I would say 'all of the above'. Thanks for the warning. I will be on the look out for this one.

glad to help. I wanted to let others know for sure. this proves to me that macs are not 100% safe and they are being targeted by someone at least to some degree.

I can't remember, but I think I had my banking website bookmarked and this happened when I chose that bookmark. I no longer bookmark any critical financial sites... I type them in manually. And I now keep my browser updated.

Just to be clear...no one said Mac's are 100% safe.

If anyone thinks this...I got some ocean front property in Arizona for sale!

- Nick

The page you saw is not a flaw in OS X - it's just a webpage. I'm sure you'd see the exact same thing if you accessed the page from Firefox on any other platform. Indeed, I'm willing to bet that it just read your user agent string which contains the version of the browser that you're using. In other words, the page itself is not malware but what it makes you do might be malware related.

While the page might be malicious, it does bring up a good point: you're using an outdated version of Firefox.

some people think macs are 100% safe I'm sure. I use to think it years ago. they are much safer than PCs in my experience. at least for now. they can only be 100% safe if you unplug them from the web and leave them in the box.

macgig said:

some people think macs are 100% safe I'm sure.

Click to expand...

Sure there are. But then I and others can probably make an endless list of things "some people" think are true...but are false.

they are much safer than PCs in my experience. at least for now.

Click to expand...

No disagreement. Mac's have been safer than Windows computers for a long long time.

they can only be 100% safe if you unplug them from the web and leave them in the box.

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Agreed as well.

- Nick

Most of the time you can be safe from using just common sense. Just look at that URL it says it all.

Plus the fact that it is not a threat to OS X unless it carries a payload that will actually install in OS X vs the typical Windows only .exe file.

A pop up window does not equal a threat.

=E= said:

Most of the time you can be safe from using just common sense. Just look at that URL it says it all.

Click to expand...

Common sense certainly plays a role but with specific reference to URLs, I think you need to develop literacy skills for that one because the source/domain of the URL isn't always indicative of a threat.