Wife clicked on a link via Skype...now it gets weird

Wife has a MB Air running the OS before Yosemite.

She got a link via Skype from a friend and clicked on it. Next time she logged on there appeared a dark grey rounded rectangle with changing text inside. The box is always on top of any program or file open. The text varies with what she has clicked or typed.

In all my years of using Apple I have never seen anything like that.

For example:
It will show the file name in the box of a file she has selected
It will show the text entered into the Google search field
It will show the text from a selected field with a radio button

I told her to turn off the computer and not log into anything.

Apparently, there is a warning on the Skype community about this type of thing:
https://community.skype.com/t5/Secu...bsite-sent-to-all-of-my-contacts/td-p/4461728

So...what is the next step from here?

Download and run the free Malwarebytes Anti-Malware application on her computer. Also, it's advisable to upgrade the version of OS X on her computer to the latest it can run. Older versions of OS X may not be protected as well as the current versions. And of course advise her to not click on any link that's unknown whether or not the link is from a friend.

Did the OS update and once it was complete discovered that the grey box was the Apple Voice Over feature. The sound was muted so never heard a thing.

Well, at least I got an updated MBA for the effort.

The malware scan turned up nothing.

Thanks for the help.

Ha! So now you have got an excellent anti malware app and an updated Operating System. I assume you now have Sierra (macOS 10.12.4). It really is a much better operating system than Mavericks which was the OSX before Yosemite. So all in all a win all around.
You must try experimenting with Siri once it's setup and you get the hang of it you will use it more and more. Also dictation. Most of our members use dictation for their replies on this site (you can tell from the typo's) but it's really a time saver.

Trolle said:

Did the OS update and once it was complete discovered that the grey box was the Apple Voice Over feature. The sound was muted so never heard a thing.


Thanks for the help.

Click to expand...

I wondered about that for a second or two when I read the post but ruled that out since you weren't hearing anything. I didn't really recognize the box since I don't use that feature. Thanks for letting us know the solution. That was a real puzzler.