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KOOBFACE IS IT FALSE ALARM?

I WAS WORKING ON A NEW LAPTOP OS X YOSEMITE WHEN BELLS AND WHISTLES WENT OFF, WINDOW APPEARED SAYING I'D BEEN HACKED AND TO CALL APPLE AT # GIVEN. IT DIDN'T SOUND RIGHT, BUT FINALLY, I CALLED. AFTER I LET HIM SHARE THE SCREEN ""RESCUE", HE FOUND MALWARE CALLED KOOBFACE AND STARTED A DOWNLOAD THAT WOULD CLEAR IT ALL AWAY. BUT THEN HE WANTED MONEY $199 FOR A YEAR GUARANTEE, OR $399 FOR PERMANENT GUARANTEE.


HE HAD HEAVY ACCENT AND I COULD HEAR TALKING IN THE BACKGROUND. I DID NOT TRUST HIM, AND GOT SCARED BECAUSE HE WAS INTO MY COMPUTER DUE TO ALLOWING "RESCUE" ... NO LONGER THINK IT WAS APPLE, SO I JUST SHUT DOWN THE COMPUTER AND CHANGED MY PASSWORDS ON ANOTHER LAPTOP, THE ONE I'M USING NOW.


WAS HE LEGITIMATE AND I MESSED UP? OR WAS IT A SCAM AND SOMEONE REALLY HACKED ME AND CAN ACCESS EVERYTHING ON ALL MY COMPUTERS INCLUDING THIS ONE AND A DESKTOP?

MacBook Air (13-inch Late 2010)

Posted on May 3, 2016 2:04 PM

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Posted on May 3, 2016 4:15 PM

Nothing but a scam. As long as you didn't give him any personal information, he can't access anything on your Mac. Never share your admin password period.



Force quit Safari by using the Command + Option + Esc keyboard shortcut then relaunch Safari while holding down the Shift key. That prevents the auto restore of your last Safari session.

Tip: To open Safari without resume, hold down the shift key () as you open Safari. Safari will then open with the options you selected in the "General" tab of Safari preferences, options like your homepage.

Keep in mind, Apple will never contact you directly phone or otherwise regarding malware.

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Question marked as Best reply

May 3, 2016 4:15 PM in response to 2DogWoman

Nothing but a scam. As long as you didn't give him any personal information, he can't access anything on your Mac. Never share your admin password period.



Force quit Safari by using the Command + Option + Esc keyboard shortcut then relaunch Safari while holding down the Shift key. That prevents the auto restore of your last Safari session.

Tip: To open Safari without resume, hold down the shift key () as you open Safari. Safari will then open with the options you selected in the "General" tab of Safari preferences, options like your homepage.

Keep in mind, Apple will never contact you directly phone or otherwise regarding malware.

May 3, 2016 3:58 PM in response to 2DogWoman

You allowed a criminal to take control of your computer remotely. There are some steps you should take to make sure that it's safe to use.

Running any kind of "anti-virus" or "anti-malware" software is pointless. If I broke into a system and wanted to leave a back door, I could do it in a way that would be undetectable by those means—and I don't pretend to any special skill as a hacker. You have to assume that any intruder can do the same. For example, commercial keylogging software—which has legitimate as well as illegitimate uses—won't be recognized as malware, because it's not malware.

The only way you can be sure that the computer is not compromised is to erase at least the startup volume and restore it to something like the state it was in before the attack. The easiest approach is to recover the entire system from a backup that predates the attack. Obviously, that's only possible if you have such a backup. You will lose all changes to data, such as email, that were made after the time of the snapshot. Some of those changes can be restored from a later backup.

If you can't or don't want to restore from a backupl, then you should erase and install OS X. If you don't already have at least two complete, independent backups of all data, then you must make them first. One backup is not enough to be safe.

When you restart after the installation, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process for a new computer. That’s when youtransfer the data from a backup in Setup Assistant.

Select only users in the Setup Assistant dialog—not Applications, Other files and folders, or Computer & Network Settings. Don't transfer the Guest account, if it was enabled.

Reinstall third-party software from original media or fresh downloads—not from a backup, which could be contaminated.

The above being done, change all Internet passwords and check all financial accounts for unauthorized transactions. Do this after the system has been secured, not before.

May 3, 2016 4:14 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you so much for taking the time to write a well-thought-out solution. I'll give a copy to a friend, who's more literate than I am, and can do your suggestion justice.


One thing I did before hearing from you was to change all my passwords; then I saw what you'd written near the bottom, so I'll just change them again.


Luckily, I do no banking on the Internet, nor do I submit taxes to the gov't over the Internet. I always feared being hacked and now I have been.


Thanks again.

KOOBFACE IS IT FALSE ALARM?

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