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Message pop up: "It is time to change your password"

in the past few days I keep getting a popup (out of nowhere) with the message title "It is time to change your password", and subtext: (something like) 'nothing to worry about. … logout'

Underneath a button "log in again"


I heave never seen anything like it in all the 35 years of Mac expertise that I have built.

It is not clear what the underlaying process is and there is no program it seems to be attached to.


what alerts me is that in this popup there is no mention of the process it is attached to. Nothing!


Has anybody any idea?

I am sure it is nothing to do with Apple. Since my settings are Dutch, I think all system alerts should be first of recognisable als 'Apple' and second it should be in Dutch I think.


I now rebooted the Mac and shut down all underlying programs that auto-start up from the System Preferences via 'users and groups' (I have a Dutch system, so Maybe I translate it wrongly.


I haven't yet seen the popup, but if I do, I will sent a screen dump

Posted on Jan 24, 2020 2:58 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 24, 2020 3:21 PM

Problem solved.


I have always loved at troubleshooting.

Whilst I do think it is a good idea to ask help from you (thank you for responding an d your willingness),

mostly it is something I can resolve myself.


In this case, the pop-up being weird, I had 2 thoughts: either it is malware and needs to be dealt with with great caution or … it is really bad designed software (no thinking in it).

I did the first, but it was the latter: NordVPN!

the service of what they do is good. There software, seen form this issue, is bad: there is no way of knowing that this pop-up is form nordVPN!

The software has an option to run only from the menubar. Quite handy.

Also what is missing in it is the ability to shut down this pop up or question, which is quite dominant!

My passwords are in good shape (I use 1password, which has an excellent generator).


So problem solved!

9 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 24, 2020 3:21 PM in response to Jo!

Problem solved.


I have always loved at troubleshooting.

Whilst I do think it is a good idea to ask help from you (thank you for responding an d your willingness),

mostly it is something I can resolve myself.


In this case, the pop-up being weird, I had 2 thoughts: either it is malware and needs to be dealt with with great caution or … it is really bad designed software (no thinking in it).

I did the first, but it was the latter: NordVPN!

the service of what they do is good. There software, seen form this issue, is bad: there is no way of knowing that this pop-up is form nordVPN!

The software has an option to run only from the menubar. Quite handy.

Also what is missing in it is the ability to shut down this pop up or question, which is quite dominant!

My passwords are in good shape (I use 1password, which has an excellent generator).


So problem solved!

Jan 24, 2020 2:33 PM in response to BDAqua

attached the report.

I am not an expert, but my guess is that it is bad designed software, … not mal ware or anything like that.

I checked the so called 'major issues': I do not want the software to auto update, I want to see what it does before it does it.

I reviewed the unsigned files. The very old ones were a nice opportunity to clean the Mac. The others do not look harmful.

for the rest, I have no clue.


So far, a couple of hours later, I have not seen te popup appear.

It must be one of the small background-apps that I disabled. I'll restrat them slowly, one by one. Most of them are really very handy and you get accustomed with them.


Jan 24, 2020 5:31 AM in response to Jo!

Also...


EtreCheck is a simple little app to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck


Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report...

https://pastebin.com/


Or use the paperclip at the bottom of a Reply to attach the full report here. :)


Jan 24, 2020 10:31 AM in response to BDAqua

yes, this software is good. keep forgetting that I already have it.

am running it now and it triggers to clean house anyway.

together with this nifty little app "app delete.app" I am sure I am deleting a load of crap.


But, I hav not yet found the cause of this thing.

It hasn't shown itself again. So maybe I killed it in the process! 😇

Message pop up: "It is time to change your password"

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