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Do I actually have a virus? I'm scared...

Y

Yeti60

macrumors member
Original poster
May 26, 2009
67
0
I recently got a Macbook. I love it so far, I've had it for less than a week. I had been using it at my mom's (she uses on of those Timemachine things. They double as a wireless router right?)
Anyways that was working great. Now I'm at my dad's where the computers (PCs) have had histories of viruses, worms, and other bad stuff; this is mainly cause my dad and step family are idiots about downloads and aren't very responsible.

Anyways, I was just browsing the internet today - no weird sites that would be fairly dangerous - and a message popped up saying that I could be infected! I was feeling safe just the other day learning that Macs are very safe from computer viruses and stuff. A windows message popped up to notify me (which is really strange because I had only installed Windows office on this Macbook). But I'm thinking that its a fake message and instead some sort of trojan horse. Could it have come through the wireless network to reach this Mac? I dunno what happened, but I'm scared because this Mac is new and I would really like it to not screw up.

But if it does, I got this Mac through my university, so I have support and a warranty, so I could get this replaced if it got really bad right?
 
There are no known viruses on OSX. What you got was a lure to attempt to get people who have Windows installed on their PCs to download anti-virus software. Everyone gets one of those pop ups whether they have viruses or not and whether they run Windows or not.
 
Most likely its fake. Don't worry about it especially if it has a read X at the top right of the window.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPod touch 32GB: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A312g Safari/528.16)

From the sound of it, all you've seen is a scam popup advert advertising fake AV software. That's why it looks like windows - it's just a web page designed to look like part of the operating system and the stats it shows are completely bogus. You can stop worrying...
 
It was probably just a pop up. I've gotten those before, if it says windows on it it's probably bogus since you're on a Mac. Plus if you don't have an anti-virus program and one of these pop up it's definitely fake (based on the assumption that it was one that said something to the extent that you could be infected and says something about it being a security/anti virus thing)
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

Well no, if you killed your laptop by yourself that wouldn't be covered by your warranty. In saying that though it is most improbable you have a virus. This is doubly true when you consider that this "windows virus" wouldn't be compatible on OS X.
 
Ok, that really puts me at ease... historically, being a PC user I am understandably nervous about this kind of stuff. I am not too familiar with Mac (still getting used to it).

I closed it out without actually clicking on the popup, so I should be fine... nothing else came up afterwards and I have yet to see anything else.

So there isn't a risk using my dad's bad wireless network?
 
Viruses are very rare for the mac i decided to check my laptop after about a year of having it and scanned it and nothing i could find was damaging or bad on my MBP :D
 
Yeti60 said:
I recently got a Macbook. I love it so far, I've had it for less than a week. I had been using it at my mom's (she uses on of those Timemachine things. They double as a wireless router right?)
Anyways that was working great. Now I'm at my dad's where the computers (PCs) have had histories of viruses, worms, and other bad stuff; this is mainly cause my dad and step family are idiots about downloads and aren't very responsible.

Anyways, I was just browsing the internet today - no weird sites that would be fairly dangerous - and a message popped up saying that I could be infected! I was feeling safe just the other day learning that Macs are very safe from computer viruses and stuff. A windows message popped up to notify me (which is really strange because I had only installed Windows office on this Macbook). But I'm thinking that its a fake message and instead some sort of trojan horse. Could it have come through the wireless network to reach this Mac? I dunno what happened, but I'm scared because this Mac is new and I would really like it to not screw up.

But if it does, I got this Mac through my university, so I have support and a warranty, so I could get this replaced if it got really bad right?
Click to expand...

1. That was an ad. Don't be fooled. You could have clicked on it and nothing would have happened to your computer.
2. It's Microsoft Office. Microsoft is a software company that makes software. There's Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. There's no such thing as "Windows office."
3. You don't have a virus, stop worrying about things like that.
4. Viruses are not like in the movies, they don't infect computers like that. They are written for Windows - they are programs designed to work in Windows. They can not work in OS X.
5. In no situation would anyone ever replace a computer because it had a virus. Viruses are SOFTWARE. Your HARDWARE is not affected by it. Viruses are not a big deal. I have been using Windows at work for 4 years, not a single virus. I don't have antivirus software installed. Viruses are less common than most people think.

Stop worrying.
 
liberalart said:
That wasn't for your computer; it will be fine. But you have swine flu.
Click to expand...

Oh, well if THATS all it is... :D

Hey thanks everyone. You've been very helpful and reassuring.
I can have my peace of mind now.
 
I hate those adverts. If I wasn't on a Mac, I'd definitely be fooled. The ones that look like your control panel seem so real...
 
Yeti60 said:
But if it does, I got this Mac through my university, so I have support and a warranty, so I could get this replaced if it got really bad right?
Click to expand...

You also have OS X install disk for your computer. Just do your backups and don't worry. There are no known viruses for OS X, but should things get really bad for whatever reason, it won't be the end of the world.

There's always a clean install :).
 
When my kids were younger they'd get suckered into pressing "OK" on these type of pop-ups all the time. I got tired of removing all the spyware and trojans from their PC so I just made it a point to nuke their drive and reinstall the OS every 90 days. :D
 
i love the ones that say they are scanning your computer and they find a virus. ahhh the web.
 
The pop-up was just for some kind of anti-virus software, it doesn't mean you actually have a virus.
 
I sometimes get these popups if I'm visiting game or forum sites, they're always bogus as at the moment there are no known high status viruses for osx ;)
 
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