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Safari suggests malicious website - macbook hacked???

M

MPB11

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 2, 2011
159
0
hi,

Yesterday when I opened my macbook pro to acces hotmail via safari, while typing the adress in the adress bar, safari suggested in the suggested website list a malicious link to an alternate hotmail website. After pressing enter on said website, safari warned me that it could be a phishing website and promted me to exit said page.

I reinitialized safari but the problem still occurs. the only way to get rid of this link was disabling safari suggestions in preferences. Like that wasn't enough, I noticed that the suggestion even exist in my iphone but not my ipad.

Does anyone have a clue what this might be?
 
Maybe it's in your browser history. Search your history for that site and delete every entry.
 
Sko said:
Maybe it's in your browser history. Search your history for that site and delete every entry.
Click to expand...

It was not, the link was strange :
https://********@hotmail.com/

I deleted it and reinitalized but it still pops if safari suggestions are activated.

---

Moderator Note:

Link neutered.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I tried your link, and I get the same warning.
(don't use that link :D )
If you don't want Safari to warn you about possible fraudulent sites, then you can turn that off in Safari Preferences/Security. But, I don't think you would want to turn that off.

Another tip: You can change to a different search engine that Safari uses as a default.
Preferences/Search/Search Engine. DuckDuckGo should be a good (safe) choice for you...
 
DeltaMac said:
I tried your link, and I get the same warning.
(don't use that link :D )
If you don't want Safari to warn you about possible fraudulent sites, then you can turn that off in Safari Preferences/Security. But, I don't think you would want to turn that off.

Another tip: You can change to a different search engine that Safari uses as a default.
Preferences/Search/Search Engine. DuckDuckGo should be a good (safe) choice for you...
Click to expand...

Absolutely, the thing that worries me is how safari was able to suggest such website considering that it is malicious and I never visited such fake hotmail website.
 
Keep in mind that the search suggestions don't come from Safari - suggestions come from your search engine. The default is Google, of course.
And, note that Safari was trying to protect you by alerting you to the fact that web site is a known problem.
YOU didn't know until you tried the link, and you immediately got the warning message, correct?
The "bad guys" want you to click on links. The less you know about that ahead of time, the more likely it will work to the bad guy's benefit, as they might succeed in getting you to connect further, providing you with "service for pay"
Safari throws that back at the bad guys by warning you BEFORE you can go to that "bad" link.
If you get a lot of those kind of links from Google, then use a safer search engine, such as DuckDuckGo. It's a simple change in Safari's preferences.
 
DeltaMac said:
Keep in mind that the search suggestions don't come from Safari - suggestions come from your search engine. The default is Google, of course.
And, note that Safari was trying to protect you by alerting you to the fact that web site is a known problem.
YOU didn't know until you tried the link, and you immediately got the warning message, correct?
The "bad guys" want you to click on links. The less you know about that ahead of time, the more likely it will work to the bad guy's benefit, as they might succeed in getting you to connect further, providing you with "service for pay"
Safari throws that back at the bad guys by warning you BEFORE you can go to that "bad" link.
If you get a lot of those kind of links from Google, then use a safer search engine, such as DuckDuckGo. It's a simple change in Safari's preferences.
Click to expand...


Right on, seems logic. Should I worry if I got that very exact same site suggestion both on my mac and iphone and not on ipad or other device/computee?
 
hmm... "suggestions" are not quite the same as "you have only one choice"
I think of it like seeing a spell checker bring up wrong words. You can accept a wrong spelling, if you are not thinking about what you are doing, and taking a breath...
 
DeltaMac said:
hmm... "suggestions" are not quite the same as "you have only one choice"
I think of it like seeing a spell checker bring up wrong words. You can accept a wrong spelling, if you are not thinking about what you are doing, and taking a breath...
Click to expand...

Correct, therefore I wonder where do these wrong words come fron
 
Your "bad boy" sites use techniques to move their site near the top of the search queue.
The limited space in the "suggestions" may mean those techniques are more productive for those sites (I don't know ... )
Not much you can do on your end, other than being watchful (or turning the search suggestions off, which you already know how to do)
My tip (for what it is worth...) if you want to search, use your search engine. Right now, your "choice" search engine is using you.
 
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