PopUp Malware "mac-protection-alert.info" on my Safari - HELP!!!

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Level 1

4 points

PopUp Malware "mac-protection-alert.info" on my Safari - HELP!!!

We have the 10.9.5 iMac 27". My child typed in "youtube.com" and before she could finish, this popped up:

Sorry its sideways - it was saved upright. 😟 Anyways, I've gone into Finder/Applications and deleted anything that looked malicious. Went into downloads and did the same. Emptied the trash, re-opened Safari and it came up again. I tried to delete Safari so I could re-install and can't. I can't go into Safari Preferences to delete cookies. If anyone has any wisdom to share, I would be so thankful.

iMac, iOS 5.1

Posted on Oct 2, 2015 8:04 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 2, 2015 8:05 PM in response to mrshammer516

It is a scam.

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Answer 2

Niel

Level 10

726,923 points

Oct 2, 2015 8:28 PM in response to mrshammer516

Choose Force Quit from the Apple menu, close Safari, and then launch it with the Shift key held down. If the message reappears, disconnect the computer from the Internet and erase that site from the browser history.

If you need to delete files manually, choose Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu and provide ~/Library/Safari as the path.

(134327)

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Answer 3

a brody

Level 10

82,941 points

Oct 2, 2015 8:08 PM in response to mrshammer516

It could just be the website you are visiting. iOS does not run on Macs. Go to Apple menu -> About This Mac to verify your operating system. You can force a browser to load a blank page by creating a TextEdit document with the following content:

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>Blank page</TITLE>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

This is a blank page.

</BODY>

Saving the document as a text file, and then renaming it something.html

Drag something.html over the browser icon, and it will load the blank page. From there you can go to your browser preferences and change your default page to one that is relatively benign such as http://www.apple.com/ or http://www.duckduckgo.com/

That will force any default page load to be on one that doesn't issue popups.

If you still get this alert, you may need to empty all your non-password based cookies. Once we know your browser version and operating system version, we can tell you how to do that.

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Answer 4

mrshammer516 Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 2, 2015 8:33 PM in response to Niel

That totally worked Niel. Thank you so much. I went ahead and deleted the browser history after it opened. You are awesome. 🙂

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Answer 5

mrshammer516 Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 2, 2015 8:32 PM in response to mrshammer516

a brody - not sure why the Mac auto-filled iOS 5.1. I am going to screen shot your answer - thanks for taking all the time to type that out for me. Allan - I know its a scam. 😝

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