A new Virus/Malware on the MAC?

[manhattanboy]

:mad:
I have recently discovered that my mac was infected with some sort of virus or malware...it seems to have started to send out junk spam emails and consistently crash Safari3.

Any ideas ?????
I don't think it was a worm because my firewall was on max settings.

I clean wiped today and reinstalled OS X but still...
Da*n the iPhone, gotta make MAC popular and now the viruses are coming :(

[iMeowbot]

Why do you think your Mac is sending out spam? (If you're getting a pile of vacation notices and bounces, that pretty much always means that someone is simply stuffing your email address into their from: line and sending it from elsewhere.)

What makes you think that this has anything to do with Safari crashes? Safari is pretty good at crashing in its unaltered state.

[manhattanboy]

Why do you think your Mac is sending out spam? (If you're getting a pile of vacation notices and bounces, that pretty much always means that someone is simply stuffing your email address into their from: line and sending it from elsewhere.)

Because the email was sent to me from me...

What makes you think that this has anything to do with Safari crashes? Safari is pretty good at crashing in its unaltered state.

Because using firefox to do the exact same things did not crash, and Safari got so bad that I could not even start it up; it would error immediately after launch.

I repeat my ??
Has anyone heard of anything new going around for the mac?
I am not taking any chances now: Using stealth firewall + norton + little snitch.

[MBHockey]

No, it wasn't a virus. It's probably from Norton. Don't ever install Norton software on a Mac.

[mkrishnan]

I agree...you don't have a virus. There aren't any reports of old or new viruses going around. There's one new worm exploit, but it does not do these things to your computer, and it is not widely circulated in the wild. Nor would installing Little Snitch have protected you from it anyway.

But let's figure out what *is* going on...

You have problems with Safari 3 crashing repeatedly... do you have any plug-ins for it? (I use SafariBlock, Inquisitor, and SafariStand).

You say that your e-mail account is sending out spam. Is this e-mail account managed through a web interface or through a program like Mail? Again, what evidence do you have to believe that your account is sending out spam?

[superleccy]

Do you think your Mac is sending out spam because you keep getting reply emails to spam that looks like it's come from your address?

If so, that's not your Mac that's sending spam. Some evil person has gotten hold of your email address and is spoofing the "from" field in their spam.

There is malware available for the Mac... it's called "Norton". :p

SL

[Kilamite]

Remember Safari 3 is still in beta, so it will crash more often than a normal browser. They are still sorting out errors.

And +1 on not installing Norton on a Mac - it'll cause you more problems than you loose (if you even had any problems).

[superleccy]

Remember Safari 3 is still in beta, so it will crash more often than a normal browser. They are still sorting out errors.
Yes. And make sure you've got the latest version - they're on 3.0.2 now.

[CalBoy]

What makes you think that this has anything to do with Safari crashes? Safari is pretty good at crashing in its unaltered state.

Best response I've heard!

OP, I don't think you had a virus. Also, don't ever use Norton. All it does is take up space and slow everything down...not unlike a virus;)

[Zwhaler]

Wirelessly posted (LGE-VX9900/1.0 UP.Browser/6.2.3.2 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

I seriously doubt that the spam and safari crashes are a result of a "virus". If anything, the spam is because of something you signed up for and they sell your email adress

[rijiMacDij]

Yes, Safari can crash all by itself, without the help of a MacVirus and Norton used to be a Motorcycle that would only start half an hour after the rest of the gang had left for the weekend run.........:rolleyes: