Spam notifications

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Level 1

13 points

Spam notifications

Starting yesterday I've being sent large numbers of notifications on my iMac [Monterey 12.2.1] & Obviously I've checked my apple notifications and there's nothing there. They're not appearing on my MacBook or my iPhone. They are clearly spam. They come in every 5 mins or so telling me the usual rubbish about virus's , expired mcAfee subs, missed messages etc . They disappear quickly and don't seem to be stored on any of my systems but how do they get in? and how can I stop them?

iMac 21.5″, macOS 12.2

Posted on Feb 28, 2023 8:49 AM

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Answer 1

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of-the-stack

Level 1

52 points

Feb 28, 2023 1:44 PM in response to davidN4

Hey!

They are most likely coming from Safari. Open it up and check top menu => Safari => Preferences. There should be a tab - Websites => Notifications. I would remove all what's there and uncheck "Allow...".

Writing from phone...will check back later...let me know what you find there.

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Answer 2

Mar 1, 2023 2:48 AM in response to davidN4

Good to know!

Also, would advise to set Firewall settings to "Deny all incoming" if you are not using sharing services. macOS Ventura is suffering from an issue where Firewall "resets itself" for some reason...or maybe I had malware on my mac, who knows, the issue is somewhat spread since I've seen some other posts about this, but there's no solution right now as far as I can tell. m1, m2 and intel macs are affected...something weird is going on with Ventura anyways so would also not advise to upgrade at this point. I did downgrade to Monterey and it seems like it's okay now. I hope it is...

Also, cyber attacks are are on the rise. What it was...in Italy ~70% up or something like that. Seems like a lot of stuff is getting targeted including personal devices...so never too careful. No idea what to make of this...just saw some social media posts and getting nervous...

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

148,220 points

Feb 28, 2023 9:45 AM in response to davidN4

Do you currently have any 3rd party anti-virus, malware, or cleaner apps installed on this iMac? ... or had previously installed?

Where exactly are these notifications appearing? On the Desktop, in a web browser, somewhere else?

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Answer 4

davidN4 Author

Level 1

13 points

Mar 1, 2023 12:51 AM in response to of-the-stack

Thank you!

That sorted the problem instantly. There was only one thing there...an icon that looked like the Mac symbol for notifications but clearly wasn't - no idea how it got there but now I've set preferences so that no external sites can even ask to be allowed to send notifications.

Thanks again,

David

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Answer 5

davidN4 Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 28, 2023 11:42 AM in response to Tesserax

No. Nothing like that at all.

They appear top right on the desktop where "genuine" notifications/reminders etc also appear

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