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Can't get Malware to clean out bugs on my Mac


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Hello, has anyone had trouble getting the free malware for Mac to clear out bugs?  My Mac is old-'09- but relatively up to date with 10.11.6 El Capitan.  I've installed the free version 3 or 4 times and still keep getting the high pitch signal that my Mac is infected.  I've watched the video after the 2nd time, and have followed steps exactly, as far as I can tell. It all goes according to the written instructions and the video, as well.

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What “high pitch signal” are you referring to? This doesn’t sound like a symptom of any known malware or adware.

If you’re getting some kind of high-pitched tone sometimes when you boot your system, that is probably a sign of a hardware failure with your Mac, and you should get it checked out by Apple ASAP. (And backup all your data while you can, in case the machine fails completely.)

If you’re visiting a website and getting some kind of scary message with a high-pitched sound effect, that’s likely to be the product of malvertising - ie, a malicious advertisement that has gotten into another site’s advertising feed. In general, no message in your browser telling you that you’re infected is actually legitimate, as a browser has no capability to detect malware on your system. These are simply scam web pages, and you should close them and avoid the site you were visiting when they popped up.

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1 hour ago, DLF said:

still keep getting the high pitch signal that my Mac is infected.

There is almost certainly nothing on your Mac that needs to be removed. As explained, it's simply malvertisements place on a variety of sites in an attempt to get you to purchase something you don't need. There is no way to determine that your Mac is infected from the Internet. All you need to do is install a good ad blocker and those will stop.

If you are using Chrome or Firefox browsers, there is a new, free Malwarebytes Browser Guard available, but not for Safari yet, so you'll need to try something else.

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Thanks, everyone.  As of right now, for the first time I got a popup from malwarebytes that said a virus was detected, and I needed to restart.  So I did so, and right now my Mac seems to be functioning ok.

The high pitched sound was crazy!  Kind of a screech.  Then a generic looking pop up came up (big white box, kind of like those "unexpected" things with Apple, where they ask you if you want to send this problem to apple--but it said something about a virus, and gave me a problem confirmation number type of thing.  I figured it was legit, because then the Apple customer support site would then also come up.  I did a brief chat the first time around with them, and they said since we have an apple certified guy who checks our computers, to notify him.  He told me to download the malwarebytes, which I kept trying to do.  I'll see now if it's truly fixed.  This "bug" has come back like a swamp creature every time I think I must have it gone. 

And, thanks for the Safari bug idea--I will try that next. 

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Hey Al Varnell:  Imagine seeing you on this Forum. I’m JIM B from Clamxav days. Remember me? Now that I’ve got you, Are there any of the Ransom malware type virus around for Mac users? I have Malwarebytes Premium on my old iMac, plus a copy of “Ransomwhere” running in background. And, , of course, I have ClamXav as well. I have Malwarebytes Premium on my iPad and iPhone as well. As far as you know, any penetration of viruses on iOS (iPad/iPhone) lately ..or ever?

The iMac is still on Yosemite(macOS 10.10.5),,,, so guess i’m stuck there until a new one arrives (affordable one?). anyhow, nice to have seen you .... 

It’s just this ransom stuff scares me...and I’m getting older (made it to 90 this year!) so this stuff worries me. I backup the iMac on SuperDuper once a week. (Note ...Daily I use this iPad for most work...but I use the Mac about once a week.)

Cheers to you Al,

Jim Babcock   (Now living in Encinitas Ca.) 

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Hi Jim, of course I remember you. I still work unofficially with the ClamXAV crew, but their Forum I spend most of my time on wasn't being used by the few legacy users left, so it's gone now.

My iMac is pretty much setup identically to yours, except it's newer and running Mojave at this time. There have only been two known Ransomware threats for Mac identified and both were short lived.

  • KeRanger infected about 7,000 users by tricking people into downloading an infected Transmission BitTorrent client almost two years ago now. Here's the Malwarebytes blog about it: First Mac ransomware spotted.
  • The second, discovered a few month later being distributed from pirate BitTorrent sites (note the pattern here) pretends to be a patcher of applications such as Adobe Premiere Pro or Microsoft office for Mac. Known variously as FileCoder, FindZip and Patcher here's a writeup from ESET who first identified it: New crypto‑ransomware hits macOS.

So as far as threats are concerned, Macs apparently don't represent very lucrative targets. There have also been a bunch of fake infections, where you get a popup or e-mail threatening ransom, but those should be completely ignored. That's not to say somebody won't take up the challenge in the future, which is where something like RansomWhere? can be useful to prevent you from being patient zero in such an attack.

Malware penetration of iOS is still rare, most, but not all, involving "jailbroken" devices. The latest non-jailbroke attack is described here: Unprecedented new iPhone malware discovered. Apple patched the vulnerabilities about ten days after notification back in February and has made an official statement alleging some aspects of Google reporting to be inaccurate & incomplete. It's also now been confirmed that Chinese Uighurs were the target, so very limited in scope.

Great to hear from you. Mountain View is a great place to live, but envious of you being closer to the beach. I suspect Carmel (where I met and married my wife) would be my personal choice.

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