McAfee: PC is At Risk

[tobindia]

I sorta fell for this "virus," but stopped before it got too far. I removed all of my apps and rebooted, but I get the attached pop-up for a few seconds after a restart. Obviously, I still have something running that I need to get rid of. What should I look for?

 

[RadDave]

I sorta fell for this "virus," but stopped before it got too far. I removed all of my apps and rebooted, but I get the attached pop-up for a few seconds after a restart. Obviously, I still have something running that I need to get rid of. What should I look for?

Hello - you need to provide much more information: 1) What Apple computer do you own (model/year); 2) What macOS are you using (be specific (current version is Sequoia 15.5); 3) What do you mean by 'stopped before it got too far'?; 4) What do you mean by 'removed all of my apps', i.e. did you close your apps and reboot or something more drastic?; and 5) Are you running an anti-virus app on your computer? There are other questions but answers to these will likely help members wanting to reply.

Also, do you have the apps pictured below on your computer - these are the usual suggested when dealing with 'malware' (BTW, you don't have a virus) - DetectX can be downloaded HERE - run to see if you may still have malware on your computer; VirusBarrier Scanner is available in the Apple App Store; and Onyx can be DLed from HERE - you NEED to match your OS version with the exact one on the website - just for starters. Good luck. Dave
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[pm-r]

What should I look for?

RadDave mentioned some details you need to provide but in the interim you could try using Find Any File (FAF) and at least do a search on name contains "virus" and ends with ".app" and see what it shows that you have for such applications running on your Mac.

Have you done any reading on this website of forum posts, You know you don't need a virus protection application.

You can pick up a copy of Find Any File here:

Find Any File - Manual

findanyfile.app

It should be able to find any or all unneeded applications on your Mac and you can useFAF to delete them or download and use a copy of AppCleaner.app that makes it removal even easier for removing unnecessary applications once you find out what they are.

Info and download available here: AppCleaner



- Patrick
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[tobindia]

you need to provide much more information:

I have a MacBook Air 2020 running Sequoia 15.5. Once I realized that this was malware, I stopped answering questions. I closed all apps and restarted, then I got the aforementioned pop-up. I then posted my initial question. While awaiting a response, I ran Onyx Maintenance. I still got the pop-up. After getting your response, I downloaded DetectX and ran it. I also ran Onyx Security. I still got the pop-up.

you could try using Find Any File (FAF)

I'm not familiar with FAF, but I'll give it a shot.

Thanks to you both.

 

[RadDave]

I have a MacBook Air 2020 running Sequoia 15.5. Once I realized that this was malware, I stopped answering questions. I closed all apps and restarted, then I got the aforementioned pop-up. I then posted my initial question. While awaiting a response, I ran Onyx Maintenance. I still got the pop-up. After getting your response, I downloaded DetectX and ran it. I also ran Onyx Security. I still got the pop-up.


I'm not familiar with FAF, but I'll give it a shot.

Thanks to you both.

Well, try DetectX and let us know if you had any antivirus app installed which could be an issue and uninstallment may need specific steps - and of course try Patrick's advice. Dave

 

[Rod]

Do you actually have McAfee software on board. If so it's rubbish in my opinion and constant adware notifications are likely to pop up like the one you show in your screen shot even if you don't have it. For the time being I would just ignore it.
I'm with others, DetectX Swift is good, fast and free. It will allow you to Delete or just Quarantine anything suspect, even PUP's (Potentially Unwanted Programs).
Intego Virus Barrier Scanner is also good but misnamed as there are no virus' for the Mac but it will find Malware and I think Adware which may account for your McAfee notification. Clicking on that will almost certainly take you to Mac-Uptodate.com to download a McAfee product. When I do a search for Mac-Uptodate.com I get this, "macuptodate.com doesn't support a secure connection with HTTPS" a warning in itself.

 

[Rod]

I have a MacBook Air 2020 running Sequoia 15.5. Once I realized that this was malware, I stopped answering questions. I closed all apps and restarted, then I got the aforementioned pop-up. I then posted my initial question. While awaiting a response, I ran Onyx Maintenance. I still got the pop-up. After getting your response, I downloaded DetectX and ran it. I also ran Onyx Security. I still got the pop-up.

Sorry, just got the above reply from you. If you cant find any actual adware or malware related to the popup it may be a cookie from a website. You may need to try clearing all browsing data; cookies, history and cache from your browser. It's harmless and worth a try. It may marginally increase the time it takes to load frequently visited sites at your next visit but thats about all.
Brave browser even has a setting to remove cookies every time you close a site, I dont go that far but I do clear all occasionally.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I sorta fell for this "virus," but stopped before it got too far. I removed all of my apps and rebooted, but I get the attached pop-up for a few seconds after a restart. Obviously, I still have something running that I need to get rid of. What should I look for?

Believe it or not, this isn't malware. In fact, no matter what anti-virus software you run, you won't find any malware on your Mac, because there isn't any. It's adware in the form of a notification from a Web site that you were tricked into agreeing to. That is, you visited a Web site, and clicked on a window that asked if you wanted notifications from that Web site, and agreed. Possibly without even realizing it.

Here is how to deal with it.

While in Safari, open Preferences in the Safari menu. Click on Websites. Click on Notifications in the column on the left. Delete all notifications that you don't recognize.

Still in Safari Preferences, click on Privacy. Then Click on "Manage Website Data". Click on "Remove All".
(The offender may be called "scan-mypc.xyz".)

Still in Safari Preferences, click on Extensions. Uninstall any Extensions that you aren't 100% sure that you installed on purpose.

It wouldn't hurt to close Safari and restart your Mac after doing all of the above.

If you are using a different browser than Safari, let me know, and I’ll tell you how to fix this in that browser.

See:

https://tidbits.com/2023/06/26/how-to-identify-and-eliminate-abusive-web-notifications/

https://www.macworld.com/article/2110589/block-unwanted-website-notifications-mac.html

 

[Randy B. Singer]

To be clear....there is no risk of harm to your Macintosh. This is just an annoying ad.

 

[tobindia]

While in Safari, open Preferences in the Safari menu. Click on Websites. Click on Notifications in the column on the left. Delete all notifications that you don't recognize.

Still in Safari Preferences, click on Privacy. Then Click on "Manage Website Data". Click on "Remove All".
(The offender may be called "scan-mypc.xyz".)

Still in Safari Preferences, click on Extensions. Uninstall any Extensions that you aren't 100% sure that you installed on purpose.

It wouldn't hurt to close Safari and restart your Mac after doing all of the above.

I followed these steps, and the pop-ups have stopped! Also, I downloaded and ran DetectX. Everything seems to be OK -- at least, it didn't indicate that anything was amiss.

Thanks to all!