I have Sophos Anti-Virus program and it detected OSX/Geonei-A after I tried downloading something off the internet. I deleted the file I had downloaded (it was called something like mac_installer). Is there anything else I need to do? How does this affect my computer? My Sophos Anti-Virus is stuck "calculating" a scan and doesn't seem to be working properly. Please help, thanks!
MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.5)
Sophos won't remove it for you because, believe it or not, it's a legitimate application signed with a valid Apple Developer ID, so even though you were almost certainly tricked into downloading and installing it, Sophos cannot simply assume you don't want it.
The fastest, most effective way to identify and optionally remove all currently known adware is by using AdwareMedic, developed by thomas_r. this Forum's malware guru, owner of TheSafeMac and a colleague of mine.
To understand why this happened an how to avoid such things in the future read John Galt's How to install adware.
I can't see your screenshots, due to long-standing bugs with the crummy Jive software powering this forum. So I can't see exactly what Sophos found.
However, I can provide a few general comments. First, note that Sophos will not properly remove any adware, nor will any other anti-virus software that I'm aware of. Anti-virus software may remove some components, and that may be enough to eliminate visible symptoms, but there will probably be leftovers still active in your system.
Second, be aware that AdwareMedic will only find and remove installed components of adware. It does not try to find installers, which anti-virus apps like Sophos may detect.
Finally, if there are things that your anti-virus software detects that AdwareMedic does not, you still should not allow the anti-virus software to remove it. To delete such things, see:
(Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my site and software, in the form of buttons allowing for donations. Donations are not required to use my site or software.)
This isn't in reply to a specific person, but to all who are having this problem. I just discovered this thread, and I want to share the solution I found in case it might help someone else.
Check to see if the installer volume (the item you downloaded) is still on your desktop. If it is, drag it to the Trash icon at the right end of the the Dock, where it will disappear instead of going into the Trash. When I did this, my copy of "OSX/Geonei-A" disappeared too; it was no longer in the Quarantine Manager, where I had been trying to get rid of it for about an hour.
Sophos had quarantined the copy of the threat that was inside the installer volume. There was no copy anywhere else to cause me any trouble, even though I had opened the dmg file and then the app itself.
That's the last time I will ever forget to dump the installer before I do anything at all with its contents. Apparently Sophos can "see" what's in there, including threats that don't go anywhere else.
cgadziko wrote:
Sophos had quarantined the copy of the threat that was inside the installer volume. There was no copy anywhere else to cause me any trouble, even though I had opened the dmg file and then the app itself.
When Sophos tells you that it has "Quarantined" an app, it just means that they disabled it and you will not be able to open it, not that it moved it to the "Quarantine Manager" which is simply a window that allows you to deal with the problem. Since Genieo is a legitimate application, signed with an Apple DeveloperID, Sophos won't allow you to delete it from the Quarantine Manager and gives you a list of files to remove on you own, in case you have accidentally installed it and don't want it.
Threat detected: OSX/Geonei-A. What do I do?
