I have a 2012 Macbook pro 13" using mac os high Sierra. I have not had Apple Care for some time because of the laptop's age. I just started getting virus alerts from so called Apple Care that i believe are fake. Has this been seen before? What is a decent anti virus for a Mac to prevent these infections. I currently have Avast but this got through.
macOS High Sierra (10.13.4)
1. Click in the menu bar and choose “Force Quit”.
In the window that opens up, select “Safari” and click “Force Quit.
2. Relaunch Safari holding the shift key down.
Additional steps if needed:
3. Turn off wifi and turn it back on.
Turn off Wifi. Click Wifi icon in the menu bar and select “Turn Wifi off”.
Visit another website.
You won’t have internet connection.
Turn on Wifi. Click Wifi icon in the menu bar and select “Turn Wifi on”.
Select your Network.
4. Click Safari in the Safari menu bar and choose “Clear History”.
Select an appropriate time frame.
For additional info: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203987
1. Click in the menu bar and choose “Force Quit”.
In the window that opens up, select “Safari” and click “Force Quit.
2. Relaunch Safari holding the shift key down.
Additional steps if needed:
3. Turn off wifi and turn it back on.
Turn off Wifi. Click Wifi icon in the menu bar and select “Turn Wifi off”.
Visit another website.
You won’t have internet connection.
Turn on Wifi. Click Wifi icon in the menu bar and select “Turn Wifi on”.
Select your Network.
4. Click Safari in the Safari menu bar and choose “Clear History”.
Select an appropriate time frame.
For additional info: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203987
While this is certainly malware, it's NOT a virus per se, and "antivirus" isn't going to help you. What you are seeing is a pop-up ad that bad guys have bought on some legitimate web page that you are visiting. The artwork on the pop-up ad is designed to look like an OS alert panel. (When you get windows xp panels popping up on your mac you are allowed to laugh as you are totally unconvinced.) The trick is to get your browser off the website and don't go back.
As far as I can tell, the only legit use of an antivirus app on a mac is the case where you receive an email that contains a windows virus, and you then unwittingly forward that email to someone running windows and it infects their machine. That's the one thing that a mac antivirus app can prevent. You can limit that problem without an "antivirus" program by not forwarding emails from untrusted sources and/or not sending mail to people running windows.
Uninstall Avast as per the developer's instructions. No Anti-Virus software or so-called “cleaning” apps are needed or recommended for Mac OS. They can conflict with Mac's own built-in security. At best they will slow your Mac by using unnecessary resources and at worst will bork your entire system. And Avast is one of the worst.
While this is certainly malware
It's not even that. Malware refers to software you don't want on your computer. Such as a virus, worm, Trojan, rootkit, etc. A web page like that is nothing more than a scam they're hoping the user will fall for. It falls under social engineering.
AV software is far more of a problem on Mac then anything it claims it is going to protect you against. I concur with MacJack that you uninstall ASAP.
How do I uninstall Avast?
ptsnyderks wrote:
How do I uninstall Avast?
Here are official instructions from Avast: https://support.avast.com/en-ca/article/Uninstall-Mac-Security
Fake Apple Care virus alert
