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I think I've got my first virus..

N

nmamur

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 8, 2006
66
0
new york
this is a weird one guys. Last night a file by the name of "␀␀␀õ␀␀.␀␀"appeared in my trash. Did'nt know what it was so i tried to delete it, which didn't work. I tried to pull it out which gave me a cannot do symbol(that symbol thats over cigarettes in the no smoking signs"). I try to get info on it and that windows shows up for a instant and disappears.
I tried restarting and that file is still in there. everything thing else in my trash is deleting just fine. The only strange that happened from this is that sound keeps coming out of the MBP speakers when the computer starts even though headphones are plugged in.

BTW, im running 10.5.1 on a core duo MBP.
 
Use something like Cocktail to get rid of the file. It has an option for removing stubborn items that refuse to delete.
 
dynamicv said:
It has an option for removing stubborn items that refuse to delete.
Click to expand...

I've had good success with this.


PENICILLIN%20V.%20CAPSULES.jpg
 
well, it just seems malicious.
I know it sounds stupid, but i've got a bad feeling about it.
the file is fishy in sooo many different ways that it absolutely cannot be a kosher mistake.
I just tried to copy and paste it out of the trash and just disappers on the desktop...the size is zero kb...its listed as an alias file...
 
force empty through cocktail did not work.
I think the only way to fix this is an archive and install...crap...
 
Like dynamicv said.Use cocktail.It will get rid of it.

Sounds to me like you accidentally typed something that created a new file/folder with that name/characters.

Is it in a folder called "recovered files" or "recovery" in the trash?
What kind of software do you have installed? any 3rd party haxies?
 
its just by itself in the trash, not in another file.
Im not very good with terminal but do any of u guys know if there's a back door through their?
 
I had the same problem, do you use windows bootcamp by any chance??? If you do, you need to run scandisk in windoze. I figured this out because everytime I unmounted the windows partition, the file disappeared and there was nothing in the trash can, but when I rebooted, the file appeared again (as well as the windows partition) SO to fix this, I accidentally hard shut down windoze (as always hahaha) and when I rebooted back again in bootcamp, scandisk started to run at startup and fixed the weird file located in the .Trashes of the windows partition. It has nothing to do with Leopard.

Scroll to the picture and tell me if it looks like this.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/384894/
 
First things first. It's not a virus. There are no Mac viruses in existence. There are a few trojan horses, etc, but nothing like what you're describing. Most likely it's either a file you accidently created or something that some application created by mistake.

If you do want to do this via Terminal, give it a shot, but be very careful not to hit enter too quickly as this is a somewhat dangerous command.

Open Terminal, and type in rm followed by a space, and then drag that file from the trash window to the terminal. It should fill in a path similar to /Users/[yourusername]/.Trash/[filename]. Now hit enter. If it doesn't delete the file, try typing sudo rm, then the same instructions as above. Again, be very careful with this command, especially with sudo, because it will ask for your password, and then it can delete anything on the system that you type in, including / (which means your entire filesystem). If that can't get rid of it, then it's likely on a Windows formatted partition as mentioned, and will not cause you problems on the Mac side, but you might be able to remove it from Windows.

jW
 
Mal said:
First things first. It's not a virus. There are no Mac viruses in existence. There are a few trojan horses, etc, but nothing like what you're describing. Most likely it's either a file you accidently created or something that some application created by mistake.

If you do want to do this via Terminal, give it a shot, but be very careful not to hit enter too quickly as this is a somewhat dangerous command.

Open Terminal, and type in rm followed by a space, and then drag that file from the trash window to the terminal. It should fill in a path similar to /Users/[yourusername]/.Trash/[filename]. Now hit enter. If it doesn't delete the file, try typing sudo rm, then the same instructions as above. Again, be very careful with this command, especially with sudo, because it will ask for your password, and then it can delete anything on the system that you type in, including / (which means your entire filesystem). If that can't get rid of it, then it's likely on a Windows formatted partition as mentioned, and will not cause you problems on the Mac side, but you might be able to remove it from Windows.

jW
Click to expand...

I tried the solution posted above, they did not worked by some reason, because it was a problem with Windo$e, just run scandisk in the Windo$e partition and you will see the a file error and $candisk will fix it. When you boot back into Mac, you will see the trash is empty.
 
thanks john (and mal for the advice anyways)!
The windows idea worked. I deleted the partition right after i resolved the issue. I remember exactly why I distanced myself from that operating system in the first place. I had just installed it to try out some games, but now, I dont think its worth it.
Also, mistakenly I had turned on the show hidden files on cocktail and I went nuts trying to get rid of DS_Store files that had magically appeared on all of my folders!
I discovered what they were and immediately found out my mistake... I blame that on the confusion caused by windows.

WOW...what a day
 
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