Got hit with a scam on my iMac

[Choctaw]

I am aware of those who say Apple Computers never are affected with being hit with a virus/scam etc, and until today I accepted that. However in the hopes of upgrading to EC soon I upgraded my Safari to the new 9ver. I am still using Mavericks. After opening my new download of Safari and browsing the web as I do on a daily basis, BOOM a screen shows up claiming to be from www.applesecurityalert.com telling me "Suspicious Activity Detected. Your Browser might have been hijacked and an anonymous activity has been detected...this is a major security issue........to fix it call Support for Apple immediately 1-866-782-9808."

I could not turn off my iMac only by a force quite, when restarting the warning returned several times. So I called the FAKE helper and yes it was someone from India with an offer to fix my situation. I hung up called the real Apple Care Support who informed me this is happing more often these days. They cleaned up my computer caches and a few other things and I am back and running.......just wondering if the new Safari let this happen? That is all I upgraded for now. I am not looking for any confrontation about how secure our systems are, I just know that mine got hit.

Maybe someone here can add to my puzzling situation.

 

[steve23094]

To be fair you were a bit of a mug to make the call. As long as people keep phoning they will keep inserting pop up alerts into ads.

It also sounds like you didn't know how to handle it very well either. Safari (on both iOS and OS X) now gives you the option to disable alerts from a page when it detects too many in a row, if I remember correctly the cut off is three.

 

[steve23094]

To be fair you were a bit of a mug to make the call. As long as people keep phoning they will keep inserting pop up alerts into ads.

It also sounds like you didn't know how to handle it very well either. Safari (on both iOS and OS X) now gives you the option to disable alerts from a page when it detects too many in a row, if I remember correctly the cut off is three.

 

[Weaselboy]

All you experienced was a popup scam. You should have just done a force quit of Safari then held the shift key when you restarted Safari to stop the redirect back to the popup.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203987

Read the section here about closing popups.

This can happen to any OS and browser and is not really related to Safari.

 

[Choctaw]

To be fair you were a bit of a mug to make the call. As long as people keep phoning they will keep inserting pop up alerts into ads.

It also sounds like you didn't know how to handle it very well either. Safari (on both iOS and OS X) now gives you the option to disable alerts from a page when it detects too many in a row, if I remember correctly the cut off is three.

All true I did not know how to deal with it. I guess your label MUG means DAH. As for calling the number I knew it was a scam and only wanted to hear the voice of some fellow from India trying to connect with me. Which happened and I gave him no info and disconnected. Called my Apple protection plan and they walked me through the process which I have written down if again it shows up.

 

[roadkill401]

I say SHAME ON APPLE for this has been a known and ongoing issue that all users of their OS and hardware have to put up with. Apple has written the API's that these scam advertisers are exploiting and Apple has done ZERO to stop it. They say how they are so customer friendly and want to protect customer information, but they don't seem to want to act in that manner.

I am pretty sure that there are not many is any users out there who turn on their computer and say 'I hope I get a whole bunch of those forced popups that your can't close or get rid of unless you click the accept button'.

If you want to condem anyone, Apple should be at the top of the list to enabling the exploit in the first place.

 

[cincygolfgrrl]

If you want to condem anyone, Apple should be at the top of the list to enabling the exploit in the first place.

There are inexpensive ad blockers available in the App Store. My personal favorite is Ghostery. Take some personal responsibility for your own system.

 

[redheeler]

I say SHAME ON APPLE for this has been a known and ongoing issue that all users of their OS and hardware have to put up with. Apple has written the API's that these scam advertisers are exploiting and Apple has done ZERO to stop it. They say how they are so customer friendly and want to protect customer information, but they don't seem to want to act in that manner.

I am pretty sure that there are not many is any users out there who turn on their computer and say 'I hope I get a whole bunch of those forced popups that your can't close or get rid of unless you click the accept button'.

If you want to condem anyone, Apple should be at the top of the list to enabling the exploit in the first place.

This is sarcasm, right?

 

[Weaselboy]

If you want to condem anyone, Apple should be at the top of the list to enabling the exploit in the first place.

It really is not an exploit so much as bad actors misusing a legitimate Javascript feature of the browser, and this issue exists in all OS versions and browsers. If you just turn off Javascript in the browser you will never see another popup. The problem is this disables certain legitimate Javascript features and may break some websites.

There are extensions you can use to turn to block Javascript unless you whitelist a web site to allow it, and that will fix the popup problem. I suppose one could argue this is a feature that should be built into the browser, but I'm guessing that would generate a lot of tech support calls over broken web pages.

 

[Greene]

you want to condem anyone, Apple should be at the top of the list to enabling the exploit in the first place.

IDK, in a weird way the fact that viruses / exploits have started to pop up on Macs is almost a good thing. It's a sign of apple's massively improved PC market share.

unfortunately as more and more people transition to macbooks, I'll bet this problem only grows.

 

[cynics]

In a weird way we should be happy that exploits rely on the users actions. Its not like it was some malicious code secretly running in the background stealing personal info.

Even you (the OP) not knowing exactly how to handle the situation were still well aware that there was a scam afoot AND you were able to call Apple directly and they helped you to handle the situation accordingly. Many PC owners wouldn't even know who to call, do they call Dell? HP? Internet Explorer (lol)? Microsoft?

As far as Apple allowing this. Well IMO there needs to be compromise. Apple can't lock down Safari completely or else many legitimate webpages wouldn't be able to function properly.

 

[Darth.Titan]

However in the hopes of upgrading to EC soon I upgraded my Safari to the new 9ver. I am still using Mavericks.

How did you install Safari v9 without upgrading to El Capitan? Apple doesn't offer a Safari upgrade as a separate download. You have to update the OS to upgrade Safari.

I'm sorry, but your story smells funny to me.

 

[cynics]

How did you install Safari v9 without upgrading to El Capitan? Apple doesn't offer a Safari upgrade as a separate download. You have to update the OS to upgrade Safari.

I'm sorry, but your story smells funny to me.

Safari 9 is an upgrade independent of OS X El Capitan. I was using it in Yosemite.

Replace Yosemite with Mavericks if you are using Mavericks.

 

[redheeler]

How did you install Safari v9 without upgrading to El Capitan? Apple doesn't offer a Safari upgrade as a separate download. You have to update the OS to upgrade Safari.

I'm sorry, but your story smells funny to me.

That has changed with Safari 9. See https://support.apple.com/HT205265 and https://www.macrumors.com/2015/09/30/apple-releases-safari-9-for-yosemite-users/

Available for: OS X Mavericks v10.9.5, OS X Yosemite v10.10.5 and OS X El Capitan v10.11

I can confirm Safari 9 shows as an update for Mavericks and Yosemite in the App Store.