MacKeeper Exposes Data on 13 Million Customers

[justperry]

It's possible that clearing those caches slows down your machine. Depends what you're clearing. Whenever I install a major OS X update, my machine runs very slowly for some time, presumably while it's filling caches or something, and then it's fast. Maybe you're undoing that work every time.

It is a fact that it slows down your Mac upon restart, but rebuilding those caches will not take long, you will see a slower start up and it might feel a bit slow the first few minutes but that's it.

But, (for instance) if you would delete spotlight database it will be slower for quite a bit longer, even hours if you're on a large slow mechanical HD.

If your mac feels slow there is a reason, slow mechanical HD for instance, or a damaged HD.
Installing an SSD will make a huge difference, I just did on my 2012 MBP (almost new).
It was terrible slow, installed SSD and it flies.

 

[MH01]

The irony lol....

 

[philosopherdog]

This product is a scam. They're preying on dumb Mac users.

 

[MH01]

Not so much that as the people with accounts probably already had their credentials stolen by some other means. Anyone dumb enough to sign up for Mac Keeper is probably dumb enough to fall for any random phishing attempt.

IE, just the other day I got a random call on my phone.

"Hi, I'm from tech support. I'm calling to help with your Windows computer. Are you the admin of your Windows computer?"

I stopped them there asking for more details (which they didn't provide) such as whose tech support. I don't doubt the next thing they would have asked for would have been some combination of my username, password, and email address.

I enjoy those phone calls. I actually play along and pretend I know nothing about computers and frustrate the heck of out of them. Like spending ages trying to follow thier instructions and eventually saying that I can't find the Windows start bar on my Mac.

And for username and passwords, think Bart Simpson , and the prank phone calls

 

[sudo1996]

It is a fact that it slows down your Mac upon restart, but rebuilding those caches will not take long, you will see a slower start up and it might feel a bit slow the first few minutes but that's it.

But, (for instance) if you would delete spotlight database it will be slower for quite a bit longer, even hours if you're on a large slow mechanical HD.

If your mac feels slow there is a reason, slow mechanical HD for instance, or a damaged HD.
Installing an SSD will make a huge difference, I just did on my 2012 MBP (almost new).
It was terrible slow, installed SSD and it flies.

I was referring to whatever process occurs when it gives you the "your Mac is being optimized; system performance will decrease until finished" message right after an OS X update. It only happens that one time, and the system's resources all get chewed up during that time.

I have seen Macs with HDDs being extremely slow running Mavericks or later. I still haven't solved that mystery, but yeah, putting an SSD in my Mac and my brother's Mac fixed it. My totally unproven theory is that Mavericks and later do a lot of random reads from disk, which HDDs struggle with.

 

[icehockey77]

It's not about being technologically savvy. It's about using common sense. If you get a popup that says you have a Microsoft error Trojan...that's a red flag, especially if you're not running any MS software. If you don't know the difference between the basic software running on your computer(you probably bought a Mac because they rarely if ever get viruses) and the error message you're getting maybe you should go back to a PC.

Just sayin.

You're yelling from a few miles further down the road though. it may not seem like being technologically savvy to you because you know better, but the example you give is exactly where these 13 million people fall. They don't know that a Microsoft warning should be a red flag. They have Microsoft Office, which 75% of them call windows. That must be what's causing the issue!

I get the frustration, but look at it from their perspective. They only needed a computer to go on the internet. Their family and friends gush about MACs, so they get one of their own. Knowing next to nothing about computers, they get a pop up with an error. the first thing they are going to do is call someone, and if that person is one of the other 13 million people, they'll recommend this great software called mackeeper. I saw the same thing 100 times at the Genius bar.

 

[Gasu E.]

Um what? As an ACMT tech doing this work for over five years, I can tell you this software is not only unnecessary but potentially dangerous. To say this software is "legit" is dubious at best

Whether it is good software is highly questionable. And there's no question the marketing for this product is over-aggressive. That's very different from being a "scam". This is a legit company with a real product that makes itself accessible to the media. Personally, I would never buy it, but there are two sides to this story. Follow the links below:


http://www.cultofmac.com/170522/is-mackeeper-really-a-scam/
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs...our-message-or-others-will-do-it-for-you.html
https://www.opswat.com/blog/february-certifications
http://www.avira.com/en/press-details/nid/947/news/avira-licenses-antivirus-technology-kromtech

 

[garirry]

MacKeeper needs to be banned by Apple themselves.

 

[justperry]

I was referring to whatever process occurs when it gives you the "your Mac is being optimized; system performance will decrease until finished" message right after an OS X update. It only happens that one time, and the system's resources all get chewed up during that time.

I have seen Macs with HDDs being extremely slow running Mavericks or later. I still haven't solved that mystery, but yeah, putting an SSD in my Mac and my brother's Mac fixed it. My totally unproven theory is that Mavericks and later do a lot of random reads from disk, which HDDs struggle with.

Last few OS X releases run lots more processes than before, also lot more processes connects with apple servers, I bet that if you could run Snow Leopard on these newer Macs they would be run extremely fast.

 

[sudo1996]

Last few OS X releases run lots more processes than before, also lot more processes connects with apple servers, I bet that if you could run Snow Leopard on these newer Macs they would be run extremely fast.

Yep. El Capitan is decently fast on my brother's Mac, but Snow Leopard is extremely fast on it in comparison. He's got an SSD, and Snow Leopard boots up as quickly as El Capitan wakes from sleep.

 

[gnasher729]

Someone called my aunt claiming to be from microsoft, and she gave them her administrator login because seriously who would claim to be microsoft other than microsoft right?, the hackers then installed remote access and hid all her files, offering to fix it if she would just provide her credit card number.

I always ask them: How do you know there is something wrong with my computer? You can't know anything about my computer unless you have hacked into it. You know that hacking into my computer is criminal, right? So you are working for a bunch of criminals? At that point they usually hang up.

PS. It would indeed be very, very, very difficult for anyone to detect that your computer is affected by malware from the outside.

I would hardly say they deserve to become victims of identity theft because of their lack of technical expertise and a shady company who cannot protect their data.

From what I read, it was worse than "cannot protect their data". The data was actually out in the open, in an obscure place, but out in the open. That's not like putting your customer data into a save with the combination 1234, it's putting your customer data into a box outside your front door with a sign "secret customer data".

 

[KnighsTalker]

I am recently new to the Mac computers but have a bit of confusion regarding security.

Simply put, would you have an antivirus software on it??

From some users here and other users on the web they have installed at least a LIGHT version of antivirus. And what I mean by that is they download a software they feel will not slow down a Mac or does simple optimizations and protection.

While many say having a antivirus on a Mac is completely unnecessary.

I have had Norton on pc for the past 8 years and have not had a virus since. Like I said before, I just got my first Mac recently and would like some clarification on this subject. Since articles like this make me worry about such breaches - and big box retailers carry antivirus software for macs in their stores as well.

In my opinion, antivirus (or should I say antimalware) software on a Mac won't do anything really, so it's just bloat. Just keep your software updated, don't install sketchy stuff, and you're probably already protecting yourself better than Norton would. I've never gotten any malware on my Mac. I don't even install antivirus on Windows. On Windows, I've only gotten malware twice, and that was when I was "acquiring" things from "untrusted sources" without any regard for security since it was in a disposable VM anyway.

Well, in my opinion, I'd say it's a little more complex then that. "Riding bareback" for malware protection on the Mac is akin to playing Russian roulette with a 600 chambered cylinder on a revolver. Sure you have less of a chance of being infected but you still can be infected. As for myself, I use one of the free malware checkers currently available. I did some research using these 2 references online:

https://www.av-test.org/en/news/new...-attack-10-security-packages-put-to-the-test/
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-antivirus,review-2588-6.html

From these sites I'd say Bitdefender is the best, but you do have to pay for it. If you are worried about a system hit on performance this one would be the best choice. However if you happen to own a faster and/or newer Mac and don't want to pay a yearly fee on the off chance you might get infected, I'd say go with either Avira or Avast. They're both free and their system performance impact is fairly minimal.


Note: One caveat... If you do decide to load one of these programs, I suggest after you do so, when you perform any system updates that require a reboot, to disable real-time protection until after the reboot. I corrupted the malware program I was using by forgetting to do so. Fortunately all I had to do was uninstall and reinstall it.


Update: As of 12/17/2015 AV-TEST just released an updated report for Mac malware apps:

https://www.av-test.org/en/news/new...ac-os-x-13-security-packages-put-to-the-test/

Per this report it appears that a new entry, Sophos, holds a slight advantage over Avira as far as the system penalty is concerned. Also it now appears that Avast has dropped to dead last in the system penalty tests. All three of the afore mentioned apps are free. Symantec now joins Bitdefender as the least intrusive for a system penalty for paid Mac malware apps. It's interesting to note that Symantec and Bitdefender have a 10% system hit, Sophos has a 20% penalty, Avira has a 40% penalty, and Avast is close to 180%. All five of the apps achieved a 100% malware detection rate. So it now appears that Symantec and Bitdefender are the best paid malware detection apps and Sophos and Avira are the best free ones. Unfortunately I'd say Avast is no longer a contender because of their new system penalty rating.

 

[Swift]

It's no surprise. High-pressure sales operations are a tip-off that they don't really care about how this software might help you. And they're not going to devote much attention to anything but sales.

 

[GGJstudios]

It makes me laugh to think of all the ones who have tried defending this UselessWare in this forum over the years. I wonder if they're foolish enough to try to defend it now!

 

[KnighsTalker]

It makes me laugh to think of all the ones who have tried defending this UselessWare in this forum over the years. I wonder if they're foolish enough to try to defend it now!

As the old saying goes, some people would rather "die with the lie" than admit they're wrong!

 

[justperry]

Well, in my opinion, I'd say it's a little more complex then that. "Riding bareback" for malware protection on the Mac is akin to playing Russian roulette with a 600 chambered cylinder on a revolver. Sure you have less of a chance of being infected but you still can be infected. As for myself, I use one of the free malware checkers currently available. I did some research using these 2 references online:

https://www.av-test.org/en/news/new...-attack-10-security-packages-put-to-the-test/
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-antivirus,review-2588-6.html

From these sites I'd say Bitdefender is the best, but you do have to pay for it. If you are worried about a system hit on performance this one would be the best choice. However if you happen to own a faster and/or newer Mac and don't want to pay a yearly fee on the off chance you might get infected, I'd say go with either Avira or Avast. They're both free and their system performance impact is fairly minimal.


Note: One caveat... If you do decide to load one of these programs, I suggest after you do so, when you perform any system updates that require a reboot, to disable real-time protection until after the reboot. I corrupted the malware program I was using by forgetting to do so. Fortunately all I had to do was uninstall and reinstall it.


Update: As of 12/17/2015 AV-TEST just released an updated report for Mac malware apps:

https://www.av-test.org/en/news/new...ac-os-x-13-security-packages-put-to-the-test/

Per this report it appears that a new entry, Sophos, holds a slight advantage over Avira as far as the system penalty is concerned. Also it now appears that Avast has dropped to dead last in the system penalty tests. All three of the afore mentioned apps are free. Symantec now joins Bitdefender as the least intrusive for a system penalty for paid Mac malware apps. It's interesting to note that Symantec and Bitdefender have a 10% system hit, Sophos has a 20% penalty, Avira has a 40% penalty, and Avast is close to 180%. All five of the apps achieved a 100% malware detection rate. So it now appears that Symantec and Bitdefender are the best paid malware detection apps and Sophos and Avira are the best free ones. Unfortunately I'd say Avast is no longer a contender because of their new system penalty rating.

Bold
You lost all credibility after making such a statement, actually you already lost it right in the beginning when you wrote:

"Riding bareback" for malware protection on the Mac is akin to playing Russian roulette with a 600 chambered cylinder on a revolver.

You should check out this: http://guides.macrumors.com/Mac_Virus/Malware_FAQ
I have been on OS X since the first beta, never had a single infection with malware, yes, there is malware but the chance you get infected is extremely low.

 

[sudo1996]

Bold
You lost all credibility after making such a statement, actually you already lost it right in the beginning when you wrote:

"Riding bareback" for malware protection on the Mac is akin to playing Russian roulette with a 600 chambered cylinder on a revolver.

You should check out this: http://guides.macrumors.com/Mac_Virus/Malware_FAQ
I have been on OS X since the first beta, never had a single infection with malware, yes, there is malware but the chance you get infected is extremely low.

"The chance you get infected is extremely low" is what he means by the Russian roulette w/ 600 chambers analogy. But I don't think any kind of malware protection is going to really help with that. They just keep a list of software and warn you about installing anything on the naughty list or anything not on the nice list. I've seen it misidentify a lot of things as malware, and it might not know whether to trust something, so you'll have to decide yourself anyway. You could instead just be careful about your sources for software. The only thing that could be worth more than human judgement is something like Little Snitch to monitor network connections and make sure nothing is phoning home.

BTW, I'm pretty sure it's impossible (regardless of technological advances) to make an automatic way to detect whether something is malware, even if you give "malware" a strictly technical definition. I think that reduces to the Halting Problem.

 

[Solomani]

It's January 5th…. and MacRumors is still advertising this MacKeeper garbage. Nearly a month after the breaking news fiasco (exposing the data of nearly 13 million customers).

https://www.macrumors.com/2015/12/14/mackeeper-data-leak/

Is MR so desperate for the advertising dollars of this company? I don't expect MR to do some moral/criminal/quality investigation with every potential sponsor. But when you have way way way more people (MR veterans who KNOW about the Apple ecosystem) claiming that the product is a fraudulent scam versus the small tiny minority that might say that the product does what it says…. then it's in MR's best interest to reconsider its affiliation with MacKeeper.

 

[GGJstudios]

It's January 5th…. and MacRumors is still advertising this MacKeeper garbage. Nearly a month after the breaking news fiasco (exposing the data of nearly 13 million customers).

https://www.macrumors.com/2015/12/14/mackeeper-data-leak/

Is MR so desperate for the advertising dollars of this company? I don't expect MR to do some moral/criminal/quality investigation with every potential sponsor. But when you have way way way more people (MR veterans who KNOW about the Apple ecosystem) claiming that the product is a fraudulent scam versus the small tiny minority that might say that the product does what it says…. then it's in MR's best interest to reconsider its affiliation with MacKeeper.

From the FAQ:
"MacRumors uses an advertising service that supplies ads from a pool. We do not select the specific ads shown or the specific advertisers who participate."

 

[Scepticalscribe]

It boggles me that people who have reasons for buying a Mac would still click on popups....

People who install anti-virus on a mac deserve to get their info stolen for being clueless.

These posts are examples of the sort of arrogant attitude that some Windows owners used to feel defined those who used Macs.

Nobody deserves to have their info stolen.

Many who switched to Macs - as has already been pointed out in this thread - came from the world of Windows and came to Macs because Macs were highly recommended.

However, nothing in their Windows experience prepared them for a computer which is not supposed to require anti-virus software; if you use a Windows computer, and invest in the most robust, up-to-date anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-malware, anti-trojan, package in existence, you are still inundated with stuff.

You simply don't believe the hype of the Mac world , because all your experience to date has made it clear that this is a fantasy world that does not exist. So, instead, you believe what you always believed, which is that you need protection.

I was one of those who had a Mac and who installed MacKeeper, discovered it was an absolute menace, and found it impossible to remove; I had to get it removed professionally.

It has nothing to do with being tech savvy, it's called critical thinking. If company A says you have a problem, and then conveniently offers a solution to this problem, and you blindly accept it without educating yourself on the reality of the supposed problem, this is not being 'non tech savvy' it's being ignorant.

Again, most who use computers are not experts or specialists. They simply wish to use computers without trouble.

Not everyone who owns Mac's, or computers in general, are as tech savvy as some of us are. They can easily be duped into buying MacKeeper, thinking they're doing a good thing for themselves.

I would hardly say they deserve to become victims of identity theft because of their lack of technical expertise and a shady company who cannot protect their data.

Ignorant, or lack of knowledge, still, my opinion is that no one deserves to become a victim of identity theft.

Thank you, @sandbox General, for a considered, sane and thoughtful response.

And they all deserve what they get for using it.

That program is part of the devils toolbox.

No, they don't. Most people simply buy a computer to get online, or for work; they are not necessarily experts.

While I agree that this piece of nastiness is, indeed, the devil's tool box, I don't agree at all that people who misguidedly and mistakenly download something that their experience has led them to believe may be useful, 'deserve what they get'.

 

[Solomani]

From the FAQ:
"MacRumors uses an advertising service that supplies ads from a pool. We do not select the specific ads shown or the specific advertisers who participate."

Ah then there's my answer.

 

[thermodynamic]

Definition of "profit": "The least amount of work needed to bring in the most revenue."

The funny part is that an instructor, who loved Macs, in a design class, at a not-liberal for-profit college tells that to all his students. MacKeeper is just following true to the law of supply side economics. As are companies forcing subscription plans, because the money will come in regardless of what little they put out. Adobe is going nowhere but people fed up with renting software probably will go and find better things to do. That won't help Adobe in the end, either.
[doublepost=1452287751][/doublepost]

I am surprised to know that there are 13 million users. The program ad pops up annoyingly, and I thought it is a robot porn site.

13 million licenses - if there is a per-computer license and not per-seat (license owner) then 13 million users might mean 6.5 million computers protected... as one possibility, I've not looked up raw data or their licensing terms.

And why people are saying anyone deserves to be hit by malware -- that's a little extreme and unjustified.

 

[icehockey77]

lol

 

[GGJstudios]

lol

Read post #119.