MacBook Pro possible Adware/Virus Infection?

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Level 1

6 points

MacBook Pro possible Adware/Virus Infection?

Hi Everyone,

I am probably being paranoid but want to check with the community to be sure. Have I been infected?

Here's what happened:

I was browsing images in google and using cmd+shift+4 to capture the image. I then used Preview to open the captured image. The first 2 captures were okay no issues. The 3rd time I captured the image and opened in Preview the screen started repeatedly popping up a picture from my photo library, a pdf document and a pages document. It looked like the same 3 documents were repeatedly opening over and over. I force quit Preview and then everything settled down. There were 3 things that were open the picture, the pdf doc and the Pages doc. I closed everything out and did a shutdown. I then booted up my Mac and everything seems to be okay. But I am concerned due to the behavior of Preview going crazy that I may have some adware or other bug on my Mac.

I looked through the Activity Log. This is what I see with only Notes, Activity Monitor and Safari being up:

Threads: 1,457 Processes: 453

System: 2.02%. User: 1.21%. Idle: 96.77% - Note this is a snapshot in time.

From a process perspective this is what is running that looks funny, but maybe okay:

softwareupdated

disnoted - Have 15 of these

biomed

AccountSubscriber

LegacyProfilesSubscriber

PasscodeSettingSubscriber

ManagementTextSubscriber

Installcoordnationd

InteractiveLegqcyProfilesSubscriber

nearbyd

displaypolicyd

User listing:

_biome

_trustd

_accessoryupdater

_rmd - 7 of these

_installcoordinationd

_driverkit

_nearbyd

_cmiodataassistants - 3 of these

_nsurlsessiond

_disnote

_locationd - 7 of these

_coreaudiod - 4 of these

_softwareupdate - 3 of these

_securityagent

_spotlight - 5 of these

_windowserver - 2 of these

I am running on MacOS 13.0 Ventura

I want to thank everyone for reading through all of this. I am just looking for some reassurance that everything if okay and the my Mac just went crazy in one program.

Thank you,

Dan aka macnbeer

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 13.0

Posted on Nov 6, 2022 11:36 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

a brody

Level 10

83,125 points

Nov 14, 2022 6:38 PM in response to macnbeer

I would definitely get rid of the speedtest.

http://www.reggieashworth.com/ makes AppDelete

https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/freeware makes EasyFind.

I like to boot into safe mode (shift key) and use EasyFind to locate any applications from programs I don't need and drag them over AppDelete to remove them.

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Answer 2

a brody

Level 10

83,125 points

Nov 7, 2022 6:51 PM in response to macnbeer

Yes. At least while the iCloud backup options are active. Preview is trying to tap into a library that is constantly being tapped by iCloud. Whenever the photo changes edited attributes, iCloud syncs with the backup server.

Granted your fiber does help in terms of speed. But it isn't perfect.

Run Etrecheck to see if anything else could be wrong.

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Answer 3

macnbeer Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 8, 2022 2:17 PM in response to a brody

EtreCheck Report - Based on Preview crash

Hi a Brody,

Attached is the EtreCheck report I just ran. I don't see any adware or malware. There looks to be a couple of kernel crashes though in that past 7 to 30 days. One looks to be for bluetooth the other I am not sure about.

Additional Information:

I use Microsoft 365 on my Mac. Microsoft apps are: Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Onedrive, Onenote and Outlook. I use Excel and Word. They rest I don't use. I am trying to wean my self off of Microsoft and use Pages, Numbers and Keynote instead.

I also have a OTPmanger installed that I don't use anymore and would like to get rid of. Just not sure how.

Other apps installed are Zoom, Spotify, Kindle, a mp3 converter, Ookla Speedtest and Firefox browser.

Do you have any additional advice based on the EtreCheck report and the extra apps I have installed. I want to keep my Mac cleaned up and free from issues. So are there apps I should get rid of?

Thanks you very much a Brody. You have been awesome helping me out with my Mac.

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Answer 4

macnbeer Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 6, 2022 4:23 PM in response to a brody

Hi Brody,

I checked my photo library and it shows synced with iCloud.

Not sure what else syncs with iCloud.

I have not downloaded any optimizers or anti-virus software. No malwarebyte, Norton, avg or any of that stuff.

My hard drive is 250 GB

Show info in Finder is showning:

Capacity 250.69 GB

Available: 126.36GB (31.22 GB purgeable)

Used: 149,609,492,480 bytes (149.GB on disk)

So my hard drive is about 1/2 full.

The system seems to run okay. No spinning wheels.

Hope this helps.

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Answer 5

a brody

Level 10

83,125 points

Nov 6, 2022 4:32 PM in response to macnbeer

iCloud is a very slow way to backup your photos.

Much better is to back it up to two separate external hard drives, or flash drives.

Plus it won't eat up your valuable internet bandwidth whenever it tries to synchronize your photos.

Unless you have a fiberoptic 50 Mbps or higher upstream line, that can really slow down uploading of photos to Cupertino or Texas, where iCloud servers reside. Keep your iCloud for calendars, contacts, and shared items like books with your iPad or iPhone. Use ImageCenter to bring over photos from your iDevice to your Mac, instead of depending on the cloud, and your charger cable to link your Mac to your iDevice. There is really no reason to keep a large iCloud library for photos.

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Answer 6

macnbeer Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 6, 2022 4:41 PM in response to a brody

Thanks for the advice. I have frontier fiber with 1 gig service so internet is very fast.

Would iCloud cause photos, pdfs and documents to retry multiple opens in Preview? I think I was trying to save the screenshot when things went bonkers.

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Answer 7

macnbeer Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 7, 2022 3:12 PM in response to macnbeer

Hi a Brody and anyone else in the community,

Any other thoughts on Preview going crazy. If it was a iCloud sync issue then I am okay and we can mark the issue solved.

Could it be anything else?

Thanks,

Dan aka macnbeer

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Answer 8

macnbeer Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 13, 2022 3:23 PM in response to macnbeer

Hi a brody,

Checking in on my last post. I want to close this off and give you all the credit for solving my problem.

Anything stand out that I should be concerned with?

If not, Thank You for your help. We will be able to mark this post solved.

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Answer 9

macnbeer Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 27, 2022 1:55 PM in response to a brody

Hi a Brody,

I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. Got caught up in the holidays and have been away from my Mac. You have answered all of my questions and provided some great insight into how my Mac works.

Thank you and enjoys the holidays,

Dan aka macnbeer

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Answer 10

a brody

Level 10

83,125 points

Nov 6, 2022 2:21 PM in response to macnbeer

Is it trying to synchronize anything with ICloud?

Have you downloaded any optimizers?

How big is your hard drive, and how full is it?

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MacBook Pro possible Adware/Virus Infection?

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