Nasty

[Wizardofvoz]

Ok. I have some malware running in the background that keeps popping up on the desktop. Imitates the mac system gear icon. Says im infected, please click here, etc. best program to find and delete this??? AVG doesnt see it. Annoying, and it uses cpu. Thanks!!

 

[Wizardofvoz]

Ok. I have some malware running in the background that keeps popping up on the desktop. Imitates the mac system gear icon. Says im infected, please click here, etc. best program to find and delete this??? AVG doesnt see it. Annoying, and it uses cpu. Thanks!!

Not AVG, Avira

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Ok. I have some malware running in the background that keeps popping up on the desktop. Imitates the mac system gear icon. Says im infected, please click here, etc. best program to find and delete this??? AVG doesnt see it. Annoying, and it uses cpu. Thanks!!

You likely aren't infected with anything. There has been an annoying notification adware going around:

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

However, if turning off notifications doesn't help, you can download and run:

VirusBarrier Free Edition (free)
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/virusbarrier-scanner/id1200445649

and

DetectX (free)
https://sqwarq.com/detectx/

 

[Wizardofvoz]

Thank you!

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Thank you!

You are most welcome! Please let us know what works for you.

 

[Rod]

What system gear icon? Are you referring to a computer or an iPhone/iPad?

 

[Randy B. Singer]

What system gear icon? Are you referring to a computer or an iPhone/iPad?

He's using a Macintosh. He's describing OS notification pop-ups. Unfortunately Apple made it so that Web sites can push notifications to your Mac. It requires that the user opt-in before Web sites can send notifications, but often users, when confronted with a dialog that asks for permission to send notifications from a Web site, just hit Return, which is the same as agreeing to be sent notifications.