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St3b

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 8, 2012
7
0
What would one do if they theoretically had a piece of malware that shutdown their computer every time they logged in?

This has unfortunately happened to a good friend of mine and I'm not sure how to go about getting rid of it. I've tried deleting it through SUM but it wouldn't delete, also it seems to not matter where the application that is doing this is stored, it always opens at log in. Is there any shortcut to open a window that asks a confirmation before shutdown that I could cancel the shutdown from? Any other way to delete this? I know that I could hack myself into being an admin and remove it from his log in items from there but I'd rather not have to go that far.
 
What would one do if they theoretically had a piece of malware that shutdown their computer every time they logged in?

This has unfortunately happened to a good friend of mine and I'm not sure how to go about getting rid of it. I've tried deleting it through SUM but it wouldn't delete, also it seems to not matter where the application that is doing this is stored, it always opens at log in. Is there any shortcut to open a window that asks a confirmation before shutdown that I could cancel the shutdown from? Any other way to delete this? I know that I could hack myself into being an admin and remove it from his log in items from there but I'd rather not have to go that far.

Can you boot from install or bootable recovery media?
 
What would one do if they theoretically had a piece of malware that shutdown their computer every time they logged in?
It's very doubtful that it's malware-related. Try booting in safe mode. Check the first 3 items on this list for things that may be launching on startup:

Performance Tips For Mac OS X

Macs are not immune to malware, but no true viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any since it was released over 10 years ago. You cannot infect your Mac simply by visiting a website, unzipping a file, opening an email attachment or joining a network. The only malware in the wild that can affect Mac OS X is a handful of trojans, which cannot infect your Mac unless you actively install them, and they can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install. Also, Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Lion have anti-malware protection built in, further reducing the need for 3rd party antivirus apps.
 
Ok so I figured it out, I booted into SUM and found it had installed itself in the login items, it was a piece of applescript malware disguised as an app. Thanks for your replies, I had forgotten I posted this after I figured it out. I managed to get my hands on the script, pretty sneaky, not a lot of code either. lemme know if you wanna see it.
Thanks again!
 
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