Is this Malware?

[ajaan]

My wife's computer is playing up. Fans spinning, despite little workload, and the screen going black, and generally playing up.

When we did a hard restart via the on/off button it wouldn't boot into MacOS. Instead it's booting into a "Catalina Update".

The thing is the update screen looks like no update screen I've seen on my computer. I got an image of it.

Does this look legit? Has anyone else seen this type of update screen image?

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes. That's the screen that you get on update installs. It doesn't appear on all types of updates, but normally appears when a reboot is required. It is new, since Catalina.
Looks like your wife's computer downloaded a system update, but you (your wife) decided to not install at that time. There probably was a window, offering to do that update. It can be delayed, but a full shutdown should trigger the install.
So, quite normal.

 

[TiggrToo]

Sorry, but this post feels 'off' to me. Anyone who knows anything about Macs would know that screen. The fact it started that update after high CPU usage is synonymous with OS updates.

Reading your post it comes over that you don't know much about Catalina (which in and of itself is perfectly fine):

My wife's computer is playing up. Fans spinning, despite little workload, and the screen going black, and generally playing up.

When we did a hard restart via the on/off button it wouldn't boot into MacOS. Instead it's booting into a "Catalina Update".

The thing is the update screen looks like no update screen I've seen on my computer. I got an image of it.

Does this look legit? Has anyone else seen this type of update screen image?

Yet, I have to ask... Why do you ask?

You've clearly been through this before and appear to be knowledgeable enough about Catalina to help other people, as given by this thread you posted in a Catalina thread:

Perfect on the three Macs in our house 2018 Mac mini, 2017 iMac, 2015 rMBP.

No issues, fast, smooth, stable and all our computers nice, silent, and not taxed by anything -- just the way we like them.

Not seeing any of security prompts that have been all over twitter. Had one for a new install of google drive, and one notification prompt.

Not sure we qualify as power users, but use our Macs for reasonably serious work.

I like this release. 'Feels' rock solid stable.

And this post where you discuss the Catalina beta:

I have the latest beta (9), didn't install the other betas, went straight to 9. It's already stable, smooth, and snappy for me with no issues (Mac mini i3 2018). At least as good as Mojave. Although it 'feels' smoother than Mojave but this could well be in my head.

To the point where I'm not going to install any more betas or the GM beyond this one, because it works so well, I don't want to mess anything up. I'll wait until the final public release now in October before I update my Mac again.

Like when using the betas in previous year's MacOS releases (I install them every year), I have it on my main machine as my only OS, and it's perfect (except some of the questionable UI design choices with the new iPad-like apps, but that's subjective).

So, I'm a bit confused as to why you seem to be so puzzled by this.

It is a genuine question, what may be 100% apparent to me might not be to someone else.

 

[mmomega]

Is an OS update.

 

[ajaan]

Not off. Genuine.

Yes, well used to Macs for a long time and helping people. But, I don't recall seeing an install screen this 'plain' before. That's what looked off to me. Perhaps I'm misremembering.

The context was that it came after 2-3 days after excessive CPU usage, computer randomly shutting down, black screens, and even on this update the computer was shutting down, then going back to the login screen, rather than the usual restarts. The computer has been acting up for for a few days.

Plus not my computer. My wife has a history of innocently downloading files off streaming sites, and at one point something on her computer, we're not sure what, was using over 1TB a month of internet bandwidth, stopped eventually only by an internet recovery reinstall of MacOS.

Given this, I wondered if she had inadvertently opened an install file/package, and it was installing masquerading as Catalina, given the install screen looked off to me, just as sometimes there are false flash installers on such sites.

Therefore, I thought to check on the forum to make sure, that's all -- no sinister motive. Attributing any installation due to user involvement rather than the Mac being infected.

 

[IowaLynn]

In 30 years owning Mac from SE/30 on, Catalina install freaked me out and unlike anything before. There’s usually a firmware update at front end, too. Lots of nail biting threads back when it came out.

 

[TiggrToo]

Not off. Genuine.

Yes, well used to Macs for a long time and helping people. But, I don't recall seeing an install screen this 'plain' before. That's what looked off to me. Perhaps I'm misremembering.

The context was that it came after 2-3 days after excessive CPU usage, computer randomly shutting down, black screens, and even on this update the computer was shutting down, then going back to the login screen, rather than the usual restarts. The computer has been acting up for for a few days.

Plus not my computer. My wife has a history of innocently downloading files off streaming sites, and at one point something on her computer, we're not sure what, was using over 1TB a month of internet bandwidth, stopped eventually only by an internet recovery reinstall of MacOS.

Given this, I wondered if she had inadvertently opened an install file/package, and it was installing masquerading as Catalina, given the install screen looked off to me, just as sometimes there are false flash installers on such sites.

Therefore, I thought to check on the forum to make sure, that's all -- no sinister motive. Attributing any installation due to user involvement rather than the Mac being infected.

Thanks for the clarification. The explanation does make considerably more sense now.