New Malware on my desktop?

[Don G]

This morning a window appeared on my desktop: I made a capture picture of it and tried to drag that picture into this box, but the box would not accept it. It purports to be from Apple. It is a black rectangle with orange highlights and a blue click box. The headline says "Macs are affected by chip flaws". The next lines read "Confirmed. Almost every macOS and iOS device is stricken by these issues". The blue check box reads "learn how to stay safe>". I assume this is bad news and have not touched it in any way. Does anyone recognize it? If it is Malware, how do I safely get rid of it? Should I restart my computer?

Don G

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

That is definitely malware and not from Apple. You can download, install, and run this:

Malwarebytes for Mac

See if that corrects the issue and let us know.

C

 

[Don G]

This morning a window appeared on my desktop: I made a capture picture of it and tried to drag that picture into this box, but the box would not accept it. It purports to be from Apple. It is a black rectangle with orange highlights and a blue click box. The headline says "Macs are affected by chip flaws". The next lines read "Confirmed. Almost every macOS and iOS device is stricken by these issues". The blue check box reads "learn how to stay safe>". I assume this is bad news and have not touched it in any way. Does anyone recognize it? If it is Malware, how do I safely get rid of it? Should I restart my computer?

Don G

Cory:

Thanks! I followed your advice and rthe problem seems to be gone!

 

[Cory Cooper]

Excellent!

That is a great app to have in your toolbox.

C

 

[honestone]

Cool! Yeah, Malwarebytes is a fantastic app. Just in case, another excellent one is ClamXAv, available from here:

https://www.clamxav.com/

You can run it in demo mode for 30 days. With all the (potentially) major security issues with Intel chips, having both Malwarebytes and ClamXAv would be wise, and also run them frequently. Myself, even though I am using OS 10.13.2, I am still "paranoid" about this issue, and thus I run both Malwarebytes and ClamXAv at lest once a week.