My wife has a 5 year old iMac running OS Ventura and when she has Facebook open her system locks and shows a window that says the system has be infected with a virus. She is running Malwarebytes on the machine and it doesn't detect any viruses. Any ideas on the cause. Oh, I forgot to mention that under the supervision of an Apple tech, the hard drive has been totally scrubbed on two separate occasions to no avail.
iMac Pro (2017)
dixonjj wrote:
. Oh, I forgot to mention that under the supervision of an Apple tech, the hard drive has been totally scrubbed on two separate occasions to no avail.
Scams, all scams. Scrubbing the hard drive will have no effect. Its not something directly on the Mac.
The question would be then be: how is she opening Facebook?
Is she using the website through a browser?
Some third party app (Facebook does not have an official Mac app)?
Something else?
If you don't know, then try to walk us through the process she follows to access Facebook and be as clear and detailed as possible.
Read Phony "tech support" / "ransomware" popups and web pages - Apple Community for a few example of scams that take up the entire screen and appear to lock up the Mac. It also describes how to get rid of them.
She is running Malwarebytes on the machine and it doesn't detect any viruses.
The reason is that there are no viruses that affect macOS.
dixonjj wrote:
My wife has a 5 year old iMac running OS Ventura and when she has Facebook open her system locks and shows a window that says the system has be infected with a virus. She is running Malwarebytes on the machine and it doesn't detect any viruses.
That’s because there is no virus. There are no known viruses in the wild that can infect an up to date, supported version of macOS at all.
The message is a pop-up scam.
Any ideas on the cause. Oh, I forgot to mention that under the supervision of an Apple tech, the hard drive has been totally scrubbed on two separate occasions to no avail.
I can tell you without seeing it that it's a scam. But what's causing it needs to be determined.
Are the alerts sliding in from the top right of the screen?
Crafting a Web page to lock up your Web browser is a favorite tactic of scammers.
U.S. Federal Trade Commission – How To Spot, Avoid, and Report Tech Support Scams
Something is taking up the screen, but it's not notifications, which is what I was wondering.
Please respond to Phil0124's questions so we can maybe get a better idea of what's going on. But we can tell you right now, there is no virus.
Yes they are; and, they take up the full screen
Mysterious Virus on a five year old iMac
