How do I get rid of Adobe flash update virus on Safari browser?

Thanks.

I knowingly infected Safari on my Mac with this pop-up malware.

Are you seeing pop-ups as shown in the screenshots posted below?

Force quit followed by launching Safari with the shift key down resolved the issue.

To make sure that system is clean, I ran Malwarebytes for Mac and EtreCheck.

It is possible that what you are seeing is a variant of this adware.

Download EtreCheck: https://etrecheck.com/  and post the report here.

      Click, “Free Download” button and then  “Click to download” button,

      open Downloads folder, click on it to open, and then select ”Open”.

      “Choose a problem” from the popup menu box, and then “Start EtreCheck” in the dialog.

      Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar and select “Copy report”.

      Click the “Page” button in the toolbar at the bottom of this page and paste it when you reply.

      Note: This is a diagnostic test. 

Please follow this procedure to determine if the problem is isolated to your Mac, or lies elsewhere.

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Load macOS Recovery by holding ⌘ and r (two fingers) while you start your Mac with a third finger.
3. When the macOS Utilities screen appears, release those two fingers.
4. Choose Get Help Online.
5. Safari will launch, but it will lack your bookmarks, favorites, history and other preferences.

Peruse your usual websites and determine if the phony pop-ups appear while using Safari in that mode. It probably won't.

If the problem does not occur in Recovery mode, but returns after restarting your Mac normally, please read If Safari is slow, stops responding, quits unexpectedly, or has other issues - Apple Support. The applicable section is likely to be "Remove Internet plug-ins and other add-ons" and the Support documents that follow "Learn more".

None of the Internet Plug-ins that appear in the report you posted are required for normal operation, so I suggest you remove all of them. For example, the Internet Plug-Ins, Input Methods, InputManagers, and ScriptingAdditions folders it describes in that Support document are either completely empty or absent on the Macs I typically use.

If you remain unable to resolve the problem, please write back.

Full drive access: Disabled

Please enable that feature (assuming that's an option for its free version—refer to its instructions, because I don't know) and capture another report.

And don't forget to clear Safari's history and website data:

Clear your browsing history in Safari on Mac - Apple Support

Manage cookies and website data in Safari on Mac - Apple ...

Try if this will work for you since it resolved my adobe flash player pop-ups too:

1. On your Mac, open System Preferences.
2. Click the Flash Player icon at the bottom.
3. Click the Updates tab.
4. Select the “never check for updates” option.

Have you tried the following steps to manually remove the redirection on your MAC?

1. Remove suspicious Login Items

Most malware will try to enable itself automatically when you log in to your mac.

a. Go to the Apple menu → System Preferences

b. Choose the Users & Groups section.

c. Make sure your username is highlighted. Open Login Items tab.

d. Choose any recently-added suspicious applications and use the "-" or minus sign to disable all the suspicious apps.

e. Restart your Mac for the changes to take place.

2. Remove malicious profiles

Some malware will install a malicious configuration profile that forced the home page of your browser.

Note: Profiles won't be visible until you have at least one profile installed. If there is none you may skip this step.

a. Go to the Apple menu → System Preferences

b. Click Profiles

c. Check if there is a profile named AdminPrefs or other profile you know that you did not set up on your Mac and delete it.

3. Stop potentially unwanted process running on your Mac

a. Go to Utilities and open Activity Monitor

b. Look for suspicious processes you are not familiar with.

c. Double click the process. A new window will appear, then click Quit. Click Force Quit on the confirmation message to stop the process.

4. Remove potentially unwanted applications from your "Applications" folder:

a. Open your applications folder : Click Go> Applications

b. Look for any recently-added suspicious applications and drag them to the Trash.

5. Remove malicious extensions on your browser.

For Safari

1. Launch Safari.

2. On the top Menu, click Safari. Then select Preferences.

3. Click the Extensions icon, and then uninstall any recently-added suspicious extensions you want to remove.

For Chrome

1. Launch Chrome.

2. Click the menu on the top right corner. Then click More Tools → Extensions

3. A new Tab for Chrome’s Extension will open. Look for any recently-added suspicious extensions you want to remove and click the remove button.

For Firefox

1. Launch Firefox

2. Click the Menu bar on the top right corner and then select Add-Ons.

3. A new tab for Firefox’s add-ons will appear. Select the Extensions Tab. Look for any recently-added suspicious add-ons you want to remove and click the remove button

6. Remove related files and folders.

To manually delete any recently-added suspicious files. Do the following:

a. Click Go > Go to Folder

b. Type the following locations below and click go. (One at a time)

Look for any recently-added suspicious files in these locations.

~/Library/ApplicationSupport

~/Library/Caches

~/Library/containers

~/Library/LaunchAgents

~/Library/Logs

~/Library/Preferences

~/Library/Webkit

/Library/ApplicationSupport

/Library/Caches

/Library/Frameworks

/Library/LaunchAgents

/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/Preferences

/Library/Logs

/Library/Webkit

Delete any recently-added suspicious files you want to delete by dragging and dropping it to Trash.

7. After you complete all the steps, please empty your trash and restart your Mac

Hope it helps!

Please load EtreCheck from the Mac App Store.

That tool then provides us with the hardware and software configuration details.

Otherwise, we basically tell you how to execute the many commands that EtreCheck uses, one at a rime.

This would be a more detailed path and very much akin to what Patricia666 was following.

Poke around the forums for the (many) other times this EtreCheck tool has been used.

Wouldn’t surprise me to find an add-on cleaner, add-on anri-malware, add-on anri-virus, add-on VPN client, or such.

Some of those are problematic, and others are sketchy.

Or yes, generic adware.

I strongly counsel against disabling Flash updates.

Flash has had many security vulnerabilities over the years.

Disabling updates for an app that run untrusted, remotely-loaded apps is precarious.

If patches are inappropriate and for whatever reason, best to remove Flash altogether.

And this case does not appear to be Flash itself given the OP’s initial update checks, but rather malware.

Make sure you have a complete and current backup. This in general, and given this is an old hard disk.

Remove the two add-on anti-virus apps per the vendor's’ instructions, reboot, and try again.

You’re short on physical memory, and this hard disk looks like it might be headed for hardware problems.

Remove Java, unless you’re using that.

I’d likely remove Google apps, as those have a habit of being resource-intensive.

Remove Flash, unless you’re using that.

Remove Microsoft Silverlight.

There’s some truly ancient software on this Mac, too. That Easy-WebPrint app is a decade old.

Upgrade Paragon, or remove it.

Check for browser plug-ins, too.

Looking at what’s loaded here, I’d be inclined to back up, wipe, install High Sierra again, and load new copies of the necessary apps. And a RAM upgrade, and an SSD, if you want to try to get a few more years.

Your upgrade issues were quite probably all the odd and the old bits here, and the add-on security bits. Which is why I suggested the path I did. Wipe, install, migrate files and docs, and load just the needed apps. Add-on anti-malware has a long history of causing problems. There’s comparatively little Mac “virus” malware around. Most of the malware—there’s a fair amount of it—is stuff that the user intentionally installs, and which means the anti-malware really can’t easily tell if it’s a feature that the user wants and needs, or if it’s junk... `The Apple anti-malware does a decent job with the most pernicious junk that’s around, too.

Some of those pop-ups are just straight up website scam postings. Web sites you visit, with themselves or their advertisers trying to get you to load malware.

As for your configuration, Adobe Flash, Silverlight, both add-on anti-virus apps, Java, Google, and the old Paragon NTFS have all been removed, and you are still getting not-website-ads pop-ups?

You’ve probably also flush Safari cookies and apps, and remove extensions?

If so... Enable full drive access in EtreCheck and then post another report, as that’ll be able to show more:

https://www.etrecheck.com/faq