Spyware on my MacBook?

The pop-ups you are talking about are usually included in advertisements on a variety on sites. It might be that one of those ads is on the site. The site you got directed to is probably placed on your MacBook by the person/company you bought it from. If you installed the system yourself you might be faced with an illegal copy of Mac OS X. Return to the people who sold you this MacBook in that case.

Your story is a bit strange and lacks some information like when you bought/used/installed the system for the first time. Please update with some more details if the things in this post don't help you.

CrystalMartin wrote:
And if MacBook is immune to spyware how did I get directed to that page in the first place? I'm a little panicked...I would appreciate any advice/assurance anyone could offer. Thanks!

It can be written into the page code or ad code that if a mouse-over occurs it redirects you without you doing any thing. It usually doesn't write anything but makes you think it did. I am not saying it can't be done. Problem is now that Macs are getting more mainstream there is more chance of some whacko trying to do bad things like what has been happening on PC's for years. Some may consider it a challenge just to be the first to really get Apples goat.

Now for some good less scary news. There is a great little program that I have been using for the last two years. It is Little Snitch. It sits innocently on your computer running in the background to protect you. What it does is keep programs or anything else such as malware from phoning home. I have downloaded programs that didn't tell you in their advertising that it would be connecting your computer to their system for updates or other reasons. Little Snitch pops up and lets you know this is trying to be done. You have the choice then to either allow it to happen or not. Give a look. I suggest you run the beta as it has some really nice features such as local area network monitoring. It lets you sleep easier at night:->

This has happened to me three times now! I took screen shots and saved the file that was starting to download on my computer. I have been using Mac's for 6 years now and have never had this type of thing happen before. It was just like something I would expect from a Windows machine. Each time, I was using Google to search something and it happened when I clicked on the info found at Google. Here is what I got;

The first pop up screen:
"http://scanner2.malware-scan.com

Notice: if your computer has been running slower than normal, it may be infected with Viruses, Adware or Sypware.

MalwareAlarm will perform a quick and completely free scan of your system for malicious programs.

Download MalwareAlarm for FREE now!"

Then, when I tried to quit or leave this screen, I was taken to another. I don't know if I can or how to post the picture here so I'll just leave the url I was taken to;

http://scanner2.malware-scan.com/4swp/scan.php?tmn=mwatmp&aid=biggerat&lid=intl&ex=1&ed=2&mt_info=4455_26923322&tmn=null

I did notice that the program that was trying to be downloaded had the exe suffix.

The first time this happened, I was so alarmed, I force quite Safari because I was afraid to click on any buttons!

What's up with this?

Just had the exact same thing as i was checking my hotmail account. i scoured these message boards to find someone who went through it. it hasn't reappeared yet, although it has only been about an hour since it first happened. the only thing i did was goto trendmicro.com and try to run the housecall on my safari browser, it didn't work though. i am a bit scared, i've this macbook for only 2-3 weeks.

Hi,

I hat a view times a pop-up window an telling me that there is a virus alert.

I tried to click the window away, but i didn't let me. Instead it started to download a virus protection application. To prevent of doing this I hat to force quite Safari.

This happens to me the last 6 months 3 or 4 times now. No reason to get in panic when this happens.

Dimaxum

I just now had the same thing everyone else described, as a pop-up in Firefox. I had just restarted the iMac, installed an automatic Firefox upgrade, visited Yahoo mail and Snopes.com - that's all. When I got the MalwareAlarm popup, and 'Cancel' kept it going, I switched to another browser to Google the problem, and force-quit Firefox. Thanks for the tips given so far.

I've been getting the same problem for a couple of days now...

Reeks of spyware doesn't it?

Anyone? The thought of my Mac being infected seems incredibly unholy.

Yes, I also just came from Snopes.com and I was using Safari. The exact same thing happened. I canceled the download process which left my Safari with two alert dialogs from Norton AntiVirus that went something like, "Download is damaged and could not be repaired. However, it is quarantined.."

I panicked (this MacBook was given to me by my university) and Googled for some answers, to no avail. At first, I thought that somebody hacked the Snopes.com website and injected some malware script. I guess that is not the case, since most of you came from other sites.

This happened a few minutes ago. Norton is scanning everything. I'm still worried.

/EDIT: I am using Firefox right now and added "http:// .malware-scan.com/" to the Firefox add-on BlockSite's blacklist, just in case.

Message was edited by: pamQ

Yep, just got my first popup window ever on Firefox and OS X, same group with same alarmist warnings about spyware and virus infections. I googled "malwarealarm popup" and there were a lot of responses. If something works on a PC to removed this, will it also work on my Mac PowerBook G4? I did disable my popup blocker as instructed by another website for content I wanted, but boom, this malwarealarm ad hit me, and definitely disturbed my confidence in my not-so-vulnerable Mac system. Shall try the checker recommended. But how to remove the malware alarm app? Or isn't it really downloaded (didn't click download this app box from my apple OS warning)...

CrystalMartin wrote:
I tried to quit Safari but the option was not allowed. I tried to restart my computer, but it told me that Safari was preventing me from restarting. So I simply pressed the power button until the computer forcefully shut down and then turned it back on.

If you ever feel backed into a corner, you can always force-quit Safari (or whatever app you are in). There are several ways to do this - Apple menu > Force Quit, or option-click-hold the Safari dock icon, etc. No need to shut down your Mac.

I saw this "MalwareAlarm" one, and it seemed like a Javascript window rather than an actual compromise of the system. Also, if the download is an .exe, then it's targeting Windows, not Mac.

Don't believe everything you see in a browser window, even a browser dialog (that is, a message with Cancel/OK buttons). A website can say anything. It could say "I am scanning your hard drive," "You won a million dollars," or "You have been elected President of the World," all with equal veracity.

Clarified option-click-hold instruction--Paul Collins

I just received that same malware attack. I do believe it was an attack and when I tried to cancel it it started a download. I did notice that it looked like a PC Windows attack rather than an Apple attack. I did look at what was being downloaded and it definitely wasn't Apple script. I did a scan on my files and found nothing...no viruses or trojan horses.

On Sunday Dec 2nd, I went to the Genius Bar at my Apple Store. I was told that the "malware alarm" was a pop-up window that was getting through the Safari pop-up window blocker. They said to expect a Safari Security Download soon to fix the breach, not to worry because nothing was able to be loaded on my eMac, and there is nothing for me to do.

I hope this information was correct.