Mac spyware/adware/malware problem

Have a look at see if there are any rogue entries in /private/etc/hosts

What are some of the sites... just curious if it happens for others, or if it's isolated to you.

No real need to go to /private/etc - that requires root access. Easiest thing is to open up Applications->Utilities->Terminal, and type:
and hit 'return'.

Should look something like:
Shouldn't have any weird addresses in it.

jsw said:

Shouldn't have any weird addresses in it.

Click to expand...

uhhh, is it bad when I have something that looks like so:

I know that is the code used to get to MTKA, but I'm thinking I edited the wrong file....

I didn't do it!!! *runs to bomb shelter*

Other weird redirects / site hijackings... Apple.com?

Well, something really weird happened to me the other day.. I was on a Window's machine at a customer's house (installing broadband) and I hit up Apple.com and it went straight to a site that had a picture of like a rotting apple-core and dead cow parts? I thought... is this a joke? Has Apple.com been hacked and hijacked (some kind of anti-Apple statement with the rotting apple and dead cattle parts)? What is this? It even had the usual characteristic tabs across the top of the page like it was Apple.com... So in disbelief, I looked at the history and surely I had typed it right.. A reload brought up the normal page for Apple.com with the Motion promo... weird!

Gee said:

OK, I've read loads of other posts where people say there's pretty much no adware/spyware/malware in existence that targets Macs, but just lately, Safari has started doing a strange thing - when I try to open some sites, sites I've been to before and I'm sure exist, I get redirected straight to UltimateSearch.com.

Could this be some malignant little program somewhere doing this? It's kinda annoying,

Anyone else have this? Also, can anyone recommend a spyware remover, appart from the POS that Aladdin make?

Cheers
G

Click to expand...

Sounds more like a DNS problem to me. That is, the problem is not at your end.

This could be an issue with DNS or temporarily unreachable networks.

In many cases Safari will attempt adding a .com suffix and www. prefix if an address can't be resolved or reached. The exact behavior depends on the Safari version, the latest Panther interations seem to know enough not too attempt this trick on addresses that already contain dots while older ones were more persistent.

Things you can try:

Empty Safari's cache just to make sure there's no corrupt junk in there. You might also want to hit the cookies, but make sure you remember your saved passwords for places like here =)

From terminal, try lookupd -flushcache (might have to prefix with sudo to have an effect?) to clean out any stupid locally cached DNS entries.

Get into the habit of typing URLs in full. Use "http://foo.com" instead of "foo" and use bookmarks instead of relying on the autocompletion.

Xapplimatic said:

Well, something really weird happened to me the other day.. I was on a Window's machine at a customer's house (installing broadband) and I hit up Apple.com and it went straight to a site that had a picture of like a rotting apple-core and dead cow parts?

Click to expand...

I've seen that page as well, although it only happened once and it was on a windows machine. thought it was just me or a freak occurrance or something.