"Virus found" by macupdate . com. Is it a valid Apple site?

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fam235 Author

Level 1

0 points

"Virus found" by macupdate . com. Is it a valid Apple site?

In Safari, I typed in a new (to me) website address. Immediately after hitting 'enter' a window popped up saying:

http : / / macupdate . com - apple . menu (I put the spaces in so it wouldn't become a hot-link)

VIRUS FOUND

The last website you visited has infected your Mac with a virus.

Press OK to begin the repair process.

There is no other option than to press OK but being a sceptic I force quit Safari and turned off the Mac Pro. Later when I turned it back on and tried to open Safari the same window popped up again. Is this a valid Apple site or is a hacker fishing? If it is a hacker, how do I get past the "press OK" window safely?

Thanks for any help.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Apr 4, 2015 9:20 PM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Apr 5, 2015 1:50 PM in response to fam235

It's not a virus. It's a Web scam that only affects your browser, and only temporarily. There are several ways to recover.

1. Some of those scam pages can be dismissed very easily. Press the key combination command-W to close the tab or window. A huge box will pop up. Press the return key and both the box and the page will close. If that doesn't happen, continue.

2. Press and hold command-W. You may hear repeating alert sounds. While holding the keys, click the OK button in the popup. A different popup may appear, which you can cancel out of as usual.

3. From the Safari menu bar, select

Safari ▹ Preferences... ▹ Security

and uncheck the box marked Enable JavaScript. Leave the preferences dialog open.

Close the malicious window or tab.

Re-enable JavaScript and close the preferences dialog.

4. If the Preferences menu item is grayed out, quit Safari. Force quit if necessary. Relaunch it by holding down the shift key and clicking its icon in the Dock. None of the windows and tabs will reopen.

After closing the malicious page, from the menu bar, select

Safari ▹ Preferences... ▹ Privacy ▹ Remove All Website Data

to get rid of any cookies or other data left by the server. Open your Downloads folder and delete anything you don't recognize.

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