Pulse Secure.app will damage your computer - Malware

Hi "P" - and thank you for the quick reply.

I'm still getting the pop-up when I restart the computer with Wifi OFF and with no applications running on startup.

Here's what I've done:

-- uninstalled BitDefender

-- uninstalled MalwareBytes

-- uninstalled Secure Pulse (I can always re-install when I need it)

-- uninstalled Box and other unused apps that appear to run on start-up

-- ran disk repair utility on all volumes in recover mode (no errors found)

-- deleted all Safari extensions

-- deleted all Safari content blockers

-- deleted all Safari notifications

-- deleted all Safari pop-up windows

Problem is occurring on re-boot with Wifi off and before I load Safari.

Something is launching on startup but I don't know what!

Thoughts/suggestions?

Seems like you're not sure what's going on?

It's odd to me that Big Sur would provide this message when Pulse Secure has been uninstalled successfully. And it comes up every time I restart the system - not a one-time notice and no option to ask it not to tell me about this again.

The error message is consistent with other similar "xyz.app" will damage your computer messages that have been around for some number of years (based on a quick Google search) with other apps being flagged - the chatter on Google is that this is a malware problem.

I'm stumped. Anyone else know what might be the problem, or encountering something similar? At some point, I'll need to re-install Pulse Secure (VPN for work) and it would be nice to know the problem can be made to go away.

Thanks again for all your help getting this far - it's definitely progress.

Hi Keith. Thank you for your thoughts.

I totally trust my IT department (I know, perhaps unusual), so I trust their selection of Pulse Secure as well.

On that basis, I did as you suggested: re-installed the app directly from the link on my company IT website (to make sure I got the version they're supporting) and matched it up with the version on the Pulse Secure website for Big Sur. Successful install, successful configuration of the VPN connection into the company private network. All good.

Except... The popup still appears. At this point, I think it's a nuisance, but am still concerned that something is running that I'm not aware of and that might be capturing data. I just can't figure out where the popup is coming from.

Any other suggestions?

Thank you!

I just realized after I wrote my post to Keith that I should loop in my company IT people: they really are world class based on my experience and I haven't included them yet because this is my personal laptop and not the one they issued me. Still: I'm going to share this thread with them and see if they know of a resolution. I'll reply on this thread with any insights they might provide in case it helps someone else.

Ugh - lots of wasted time!

While all the universities are cash-strapped right now, I'm fortunate to work for a big monster one with excellent resoures.

They got back to me right away and told me to delete the Pulse from the App folder, and delete the Pulse folder as well, then re-install off our internal intranet.

While I thought I had done this before to no avail, it now appears that this worked and I'm no longer getting the popup. I'm considering this resolved.

My thanks to all of you who weighed in with guidance and suggestions: it was all good and despite the time sync, I'm grateful that I've spent a few hours cleaning up stray "stuff" on my laptop in the process.

Thank you for the additional guidance - I hugely appreciate it. Wish I could contribute on this forum but I'm not knowledgeable enough - I'll "pay it forward" to others in need in areas that I can help them - thanks to you al!

The solution for me was to completely uninstall Pulse Secure, including searching the entire hard drive for anything related to it, then re-installing the app from the Pulse Secure website. I have since updated my OS to v11.6 with no issues.

I hope this is helpful! Thanks to Cynbeline (above) - that was the correct guidance. My IT department had seen the problem and knew what to do right away.

Good luck!

I agree with Pedro's response above: need to install a newer version. I found that this problem was NOT the result of malware as I originally thought, but rather caused by unsigned/improperly signed/out-of-date certificates from the developer. When Apple created an update in Big Sur (not sure exactly which version), they tightened their policies on developer certificates and generated this error message when the developer certificates didn't match Apple's requirements. After posting (and resolving) the issue with Pulse Secure that started this thread, I received similar messages with some HP printer drivers as well - with the same solution: deleting the driver in question then installing the latest version from develop websites.