Which process/application is requesting 'elevated privileges'?

Question

Level 1

0 points

Which process/application is requesting 'elevated privileges'?

Every hour or so, I get a pop-up screen that asks for an administrator password and tells me:

"Elevated privileges are required in order to complete installation. Type an administrator's name and password to allow this.", see screenshot below.

The pop-up is not embedded in a full application, so I cannot see in the upper left corner which application is responsible. Needless to say, I would like to understand which application/process is requesting this before providing these details. Restarting my laptop does not resolve this issue. Removing all Login Items and restarting my laptop does not resolve it either. It keeps coming back.

How can I find out which process/application is responsible? How can I remove this issue?

Thank you for your help.

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Feb 28, 2014 5:40 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

MarkWilx

Level 1

33 points

Mar 11, 2014 4:50 AM in response to Mark371

I also have this problem. I've looked at Activity Monitor and have found two possibilities. One is Google Software Update and the other is Google Installer Helper. Like yourself, I don't want to authorize this one until I'm certain what it is.

If anyone else has any insights, I'd sure appreciate hearing them.

Mark

Reply

Answer 2

Mark371 Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 11, 2014 5:58 AM in response to MarkWilx

Sharp one, thanks...!

I just upgraded Picasa (had not done that in a while) via Google Software Update and indeed as part of this process I was presented an identical screen to provide credentials.

I'll keep an extra look at these applications. If this problem keeps recurring I will try removing them. Hypothesis to explore that this popup only comes up if a specific Google application is not on the latest version.

Reply

Answer 3

fantius

Level 1

0 points

Jun 12, 2014 2:53 AM in response to Mark371

Thanks for posting this thread - been giving me headaches.

I quit out of candidate processes in Activity Monitor one-by-one. When I dropped Google Software Update, the mystery window also disappeared. Your particular mystery window may be caused by something else.

After a reboot, I decided to allow Google Software Update to proceed. I trust Google (mainly because they have the keys to my life already anyhow). But I'm not crazy about this one. Whatever reason they have for doing this is a bad one - they're opening their users to a world of hurt.

Reply