Advanced Mac Cleaner

Similar experience & our solution thanks to Apple:

Dear Apple,

I wish to commend your employee, James (Atlanta), for helping us out of an exceedingly apprehensive

Malware/phishing incident. My wife and I both thought we were updating Adobe Flash on our MacBook

Pros by clicking a Flash update popup that appeared to look genuine.

James informed us this happens often and quickly identified Advanced Mac Cleaner (AMC)

877-861-1418 as the culprit. They'd enticed (spoofed) us to install their AMC malware on our

MacBooks by eluding us into thinking we were simply updating our Adobe Flash.

Here’s a summary of our phishing experience hopefully others can benefit from:

1. We were Spoofed/Phished to click a popup presumably to upgrade our Adobe Flash.

2. Clicking anywhere on their popup (even "not interested") immediately downloaded AMC malware

with popups all over our computers warning to urgently take action, even after restart.

3. On chatting with Apple (we thought), a "John Williams aka C... Charma) masqueraded as Apple.),

Soon John called our phone from 855-464-4020 and an Indian accent, and proceeded to connect

to our Macs remotely. We were very trusting as we really thought he represented Apple and he

assured us he'd clear up the mess within an hour. All seemed OK until he said our best option was

to pay him (Malware Solution) $169.99 per Mac to remove Malware (they'd put there?) plus a

guarantee it won’t occur again and if it did, theyd remove it for free.

4. We didn't believe him so we called "real” Apple (James) @ 1-800-MYAPPLE who rapidly helped via remote

login to clear up our mess: removing the culprit AMC App, clearing history, cache and checking our privacy

settings, at no cost.

James was aware of the AMC App and advised to never to update Adobe Flash via a popup. If necessary,

only download from Adobe's website. Hopefully flash will disappear soon as most websites have migrated

to the new H164 web development standard that obsoletes the need for flash.

5. Being skeptical, I made screen captures throughout our scam session, which you can find at:

http://50.142.159.90/~olaf/OS/Malware/

When I asked James if I should report our scam to Apple he said "yes" and provided your phishing email.

We hope this helps prevent such illegal scams for other Mac Users and Apple.

Sincerely,

Olaf

I just wanted everyone to know that as of 8-9-17, Malwarebytes for MAC apparently no longer can detect AMC. I did as you instructed, using the trial version and after clicking on scan, it came back and told me I was clean but it did not see or delete AMC. Do you have any updated information that may help or is there something I may have done wrong? Thank you SO much for your help.

Malwarebytes definitely still detects Advanced Mac Cleaner. I just re-tested that to make sure. Something has gone wrong on your system, but I don't know what that might be. Please contact Malwarebytes support, by clicking "Create a ticket" under Contact Us on this page:

https://support.malwarebytes.com/community/consumer

Thomas Reed

Director of Mac & Mobile, Malwarebytes

(Note that the link I have provided goes to a page with links to other pages that promote Malwarebytes products.)

1. Use free Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac to remove adware

https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/mac/

Download, install , open, and run it by clicking “Scan for Adware” button to remove adware.

Once done, quit Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

or

Remove the adware manually by following the “HowTo” from Apple.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203987

2. Disable Extensions and test.

Safari > Preferences > Extensions

Disable all extensions and test.

Enable Extensions one by one and test.

To uninstall any extension, select it and click the “Uninstall” button.

3. Safari > Preferences > Search > Search Engine :

Deselect and select your preferred search engine.

If you need Adobe Flash Player, be sure to get it direct from the Adobe site;

avoid popup prompts from odd web site offerings that can move you to an

impostor site and then load your Mac with something else with junkware in it.

• Adobe Flash Player for Mac - Adobe Flash Help:

https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player.html

Installation problems for Mac OS

• For Firefox on any OS, see Enable Flash Player for Firefox.

• For Safari on Mac OS, see Enable Flash Player for Safari.

While I don't have an overwhelming need for Flash Player, I do look for sites

that support and implement HTML5 instead of Flash. There really isn't any

content to me, worth viewing, that involves having to install Flash Player.

Removing troublesome problems can be a result, to include removing those

'mac cleaner' mistakes that people buy into, that can destroy their Mac OS X.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

Please read Beware bogus Adobe Flash "installers".

You should note that dragging the Advanced Mac Cleaner app to the trash does not completely remove it. Also, if you installed a bogus Adobe Flash Player update, which it sounds like you did, it's extremely unlikely that Advanced Mac Cleaner was the only nasty thing installed. You've probably got some adware lurking on your system as well.

Thank you so much for making a huge headache go away. Amazing help from you!!

Jan x

Thank you so much for your wonderful help downloaded now

Jan x

I ended calling Apple support. You have to install malware bytes (a program they support and it's free). Run it, and then restart your computer. Also, do an PRM (?) wipe. press command, option P and R and wait for your screen to flash three times.

Thank you for the prompt reply Thomas. I have created a ticket as you instructed and am looking forward to hearing from tech support. Thank you again..........

Mike Hughes