Mac 101 Signs My Mac Has a Virus
What are the signs my Mac has a virus?
You get pop-up ads advertising Microsoft products.
Should I go to one of those computer scanning sites to see if it has a virus?
Those sites are just as likely to infect it as they are to fix it. In fact, most of them will give you fake warnings to get you to download their software to spam you all the time.
I'm not really familiar with all of this. They did not used to make viruses for the Mac.
Not enough people had Macs to make it worth the effort. It's all the fault of Apple's popularity, plus browsers that can infect your machine via JavaScript regardless of your operating system.
I do not think I've clicked on any suspicious links.
It could have been from a JavaScript or Java applet that infected the machine from a website you visited that was simply infected. They found church websites now host more viruses than adult sites these days.
What are some more signs my Mac could have a virus?
If it is sending emails to your friends without your action, if it is instant messaging people in your IM contacts list, that's a sign your computer has been hacked.
Why would someone do that?
Hackers often take over computers to send out junk email, paid per million messages sent. Others use the machines to send out links to infect computers, then use the zombies for coordinated denial of service attacks.
That'll slow down my connection and system operations.
It'll shut down almost anyone else's servers, though denial of service attacks on Google and Amazon have mostly failed.
What else should I know?
If you think your Mac has a virus, know that one of the prime targets is stealing your credentials from Facebook login to credit card numbers.
I know they want the credit card numbers to charge stuff to. Why Facebook?
Log in as you with pictures and history info and beg for money because you are trapped in a foreign land on vacation. Steal your identity and open new credit cards in your name.
So do not change my passwords on the computer.
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