Just had a popup saying my MacBook Air was locked due to a virus

All such messages are scams presented by criminals. Do not interact with the message or the sender. Do not call any number presented. Do not download anything based on such bogus messages. Close the offending page and avoid sites that are involved in such bogus advertising tactics.

Phony "tech support" / "ransomware" popup… - Apple Community

maadamen wrote:

I did close out immediately - but is there nowhere to report these scammers?

You can report them to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Unfortunately, many of these scammers operate out of other countries.

https://consumer.ftc.gov/media/how-report-fraud-reportfraudftcgov

Scammers may send these sorts of messages via Web site notifications, too. If you see pop-up notifications in the upper-right hand of your Mac's screen, with similar "virus", "hacked", etc. messages, see:

Stop unwanted Notifications - Apple Community

I get ta similar message vert now and then. I believe art is spam and if you call the number they supply it will either be a fee lance computer site that will get a lot of info from you and charge you s fee. The danger is they may ask you to let them control your screen.if you do they may get all your personal info and leave behind a wy to look at your bank account etc. I am not a skilled computer tech but I would suggest closing them out. then hire a hit nab to track them down and put them out of your misory

F

Unfortunately, the internet is an unregulated mess, with no governing body to deal with such scam messages. There are thousands of such sites, just as there are thousands of scammers calling unsuspecting victims with new ways to extract money from them. It seems our only defence against such nonsense is applying the knowledge we have to not get sucked in by the scammers.

It's RBS ... R=real.