MacOS Adobe Flash Uninstall

[Galaxyyyy]

Hello! Recently I got a popup telling me I need to uninstall Adobe Flash, I clicked on it and when I googled it it appears to be a trojan.

I'm afraid to where it came from and how I can remove it.

Help please!!

[Galaxyyyy]

My page resolution and my screen resolution have changed.

Firefox's page sizes (90% etc) have changed back to some other number.

[alvarnell]

What happened when you clicked on it? If nothing was downloaded and subsequently run, then it wasn't a Trojan.

I'll assume you already ran Malwarebytes and it found nothing. If that's the case there's a high probability that you weren't infected.

Do you have BrowserGuard installed in Firefox to protect against such things? What Firefox extensions do you have and do you not remember installing any other extension you have. 

I don't understand when you say page size changed from 90% but you can't tell us what % it is? Can't you just change it back to 90%.

I'm unaware of any Mac malware that would cause the resolution changes you are seeing.

[Galaxyyyy]

When I clicked on the uninstall button, it asked for Admin Access to do something; I don't recall what.

Afterwards, it redirected me to https://get3.adobe.com/flashplayer/thankyou/

[Galaxyyyy]

Also I was on MacOS Sierra when it happened, MacOS wasn't prompting me to update my MacOS so I didn't know how, but, after some digging, I've managed to install Catalina which prompted me to install Monterray.

[alvarnell]

So the popup that told you to uninstall was the normal one that users who still had Flash Player installed on their Mac got after it was discontinued. I wrongly guessed that it was when you visited a web site from your browser. And the redirect confirms to me that everything went fine with all that and you were not infected by that action.

Everybody from Mojave and above are prompted to update to the latest macOS (currently Monterey) and you cannot disable that. Just Apple wanting everybody who can to update to the latest, "greatest" (and most secure).

[Galaxyyyy]

That is fine, also I have a few questions:

+ Does Malwarebytes have a Full Scan option in MacOS since I only see a normal scan option.

+ I accidentaly went to "forums.malwarebyte.com" but https everywhere blocked it. Is this a malwarebytes subdomain or a phishing website?

[Galaxyyyy]

Also is there any surefire way to check for malware on PC, I've updated to Monterey now.

[alvarnell]

2 hours ago, Galaxyyyy said:

Does Malwarebytes have a Full Scan option in MacOS since I only see a normal scan option.

No. That's a feature that sets it apart from all the traditional scanners that waste tons of your and CPU time looking at every file that can be read in places where no malware has ever been found. You'll need to supplement Malwarebytes for Mac with one of those others if you find that necessary.

2 hours ago, Galaxyyyy said:

I accidentaly went to "forums.malwarebyte.com" but https everywhere blocked it. Is this a malwarebytes subdomain or a phishing website?

That site simply cannot connect when I try. Perhaps it's blocked by my DNS server. It's "forums.malwarebytes.com" and I don't even need https everywhere to redirect that to the certified connection.

2 hours ago, Galaxyyyy said:

is there any surefire way to check for malware on PC, I've updated to Monterey now.

Not sure what you are trying to do. Are you wanting to check for Windows malware on your Monterey Mac? That's a whole different thing that Malwarebytes for Mac doesn't do and I doubt ever will. Many of those other scanners for Mac that I mentioned earlier don't either. There is several order of magnitudes more Windows malware than Mac, scan times will increase significantly, and few users will find it at all useful to their computer needs. 

[Galaxyyyy]

Yeah I'm trying to make sure my network and all my devices are secure as some of my stuff is acting weird like there is Spyware or something.

[Galaxyyyy]

There isn't any malware detected but I'm sure there is something that just hidden like malware.

[Galaxyyyy]

Also RTProtectionDaemon spiked up to the 1000s in the CPU sector as per Activity Monitor.

Is this normal, did something happen?

 

Note: I also randomly got a pause icon on this tab, why is that there??

Edited December 2, 2021 by Galaxyyyy
Addition to symptoms.

[alvarnell]

5 hours ago, Galaxyyyy said:

Yeah I'm trying to make sure my network and all my devices are secure as some of my stuff is acting weird like there is Spyware or something.

Not sure what "all my devices" includes, but there are lots of choices for Windows machines and none at all that can adequately check your Apple iDevices. Similarly, I don't know of anything that can diagnose your router beyond checking settings. 

 

4 hours ago, Galaxyyyy said:

RTProtectionDaemon spiked up to the 1000s in the CPU sector as per Activity Monitor.

Is this normal, did something happen?

Several users have reported seeing high CPU use routinely, but I don't recall anybody saying it happened only once. The former were able to reduce the load by changing the CPU use setting. Perhaps the staff can comment on why you saw a one-time event.

 

4 hours ago, Galaxyyyy said:

randomly got a pause icon on this tab

I don't know what a pause icon looks like or means.

[Galaxyyyy]

By All Devices I meant what I can do to scan all my devices that I have, such as my phone PC Macbook etc.

The high CPU thing also happened when there wasn't a scan running, it showed 1000% cpu.

[alvarnell]

1 hour ago, Galaxyyyy said:

By All Devices I meant what I can do to scan all my devices that I have, such as my phone PC Macbook etc.

I believe I answered that question. Is there something specific you are looking for?

[Galaxyyyy]

Yes, I'm looking for in specific how to scan every corner of every single device.

[alvarnell]

Once more. There are no utilities able to scan and remove malware from any iDevice you have and I strongly suspect same for whatever brand of router you have. 

You still haven't listed what "every single device" actually means in your case.

There are more than a dozen A-V scanners available for Macs and and even more for PCs, most require payment. Here are some recommendations from what I assume are reputable a couple of independent testing sources:

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-users/

https://www.av-comparatives.org/consumer/

For Macs, I'm most familiar with ClamXAV (~30US$/year with 30 day free trial) which has an option to also search for Windows and other platform malware on your Mac. There's also a Windows utility that uses the same scan engine from a different developer https://docs.clamav.net/faq/faq-win32.html.

[Massimiliano]

36 minutes ago, alvarnell said:

Once more. There are no utilities able to scan and remove malware from any iDevice you have and I strongly suspect same for whatever brand of router you have. 

You still haven't listed what "every single device" actually means in your case.

There are more than a dozen A-V scanners available for Macs and and even more for PCs, most require payment. Here are some recommendations from what I assume are reputable a couple of independent testing sources:

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-users/

https://www.av-comparatives.org/consumer/

For Macs, I'm most familiar with ClamXAV (~30US$/year with 30 day free trial) which has an option to also search for Windows and other platform malware on your Mac. There's also a Windows utility that uses the same scan engine from a different developer https://docs.clamav.net/faq/faq-win32.html.

for experience of acquaintances between those listed I would surely exclude TotalAV

[Galaxyyyy]

Thanks for your response, sorry for not going in detail.

What devices I have that I want to scan is 1 Macbook Pro from 2015, 1 Windows 10 PC from 2020, a Google Pixel 2, and an Ipad 11.

 

Also when I shutdown my computer today and booted up, the keyboard would not work, just a few specific keys.

The User Icon of one of the Users would not load.

When using an external mouse, the mouse cursor can only go up or down, (limited to the y axis).

Is there anything I can do about this? I managed to get past this by hard shutting down but what happened seems abnormal.

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Galaxyyyy
Added Mouse Problem.

[treed]

You can scan three of those devices using Malwarebytes products. For the iPad, as Al mentioned, it is not possible to scan an iOS device, due to Apple restrictions.

That said, none of what you're describing sounds like malware. It sounds like the external mouse is not working properly. The problems with the keyboard and the user photo could be a system issue or a hardware issue, or a combination of both. If that's happening on your MacBook Pro, I'd recommend getting it looked at by Apple.

[Galaxyyyy]

Ok, thank you! Does apple look at it for free or do I need to pay?

[alvarnell]

Probably will look at it for free and quote you a price to fix at an Apple store, but I've heard from a few that the techs were too busy to do so, so you might want to call first.

You can also run Apple Diagnostics yourself, but they are not as thorough as the tools available to Apple Certified Repair persons.

[Galaxyyyy]

Ok, thanks!

Also, I got a notification but it came for a second then instantly dissapeared. Any idea what it is?

[alvarnell]

You got a notification when? I'm almost certain that I can't even guess what it came from. In addition to multiple processes run by macOS that will notify you of various things, you have likely given 3rd party applications and processes permission to post a notification. Only you would know what those were. The latter should be listed in System Preferences->Notifications.

[Galaxyyyy]

Yeah, it doesn't show. I'll have this PC checked by a Mac Certified person.