Resolved Please help! I'm being randomly spammed in Safari!

[brinary001]

Lately when using Safari, I'll click on something on a completely safe website (this one for example), and then as soon as that click event processes, a tab with spam opens up randomly. Do I have some kind of mild virus? I will admit I do go on bad sites like the pirate bay and YIFY for movies, but I'm always very careful when doing so (looking over my digital shoulder, tunneling through a VPN, etc.). Whatever it is, it's rendering Safari near useless because of how slow and erratic this problem is making its behavior. Is it possible to uninstall and reinstall it? Of course that would only help if the problem is buried in my browser; if it's system-deep I've got bigger problems right?

 

[c55]

go to system preferences > users > login items. see if there is anything suspicious there. Also look in Safari's extension settings. that won't fix your issue, but it may be a clue to what is there. Download a malware detection program next. I personally don't have any advice on that because I've never had the need to have such a program, but I'm sure there will be plenty of suggestions on here.

mac defender trojan maybe? I'm not really sure if that is still relevant as it was 5 years ago since it was a big topic. I don't pay attention to the latest and greatest malware/trojans out there anymore, but you definitely have something that is controlling safari. There is no such thing as being safe on sketchy sites like PB. That is why people use VMs. VPNs will do absolutely nothing either than keep (some) people from knowing you break the law.

I strongly advise that you should manually backup only photos/videos/docuents to an external drive(not a time machine backup) and purge your Mac. Boot from an external with a fresh OS X on it. start fresh

 

[brinary001]

go to system preferences > users > login items. see if there is anything suspicious there. Also look in Safari's extension settings. that won't fix your issue, but it may be a clue to what is there. Download a malware detection program next. I personally don't have any advice on that because I've never had the need to have such a program, but I'm sure there will be plenty of suggestions on here.

mac defender trojan maybe? I'm not really sure if that is still relevant as it was 5 years ago since it was a big topic. I don't pay attention to the latest and greatest malware/trojans out there anymore, but you definitely have something that is controlling safari. There is no such thing as being safe on sketchy sites like PB. That is why people use VMs. VPNs will do absolutely nothing either than keep (some) people from knowing you break the law.

I strongly advise that you should manually backup only photos/videos/docuents to an external drive(not a time machine backup) and purge your Mac. Boot from an external with a fresh OS X on it. start fresh

I did the login check and found nothing. I had already cleared Safari's extensions and cookies. Whatever this problem is, it's deep. Think I'll have Apple look at it and see if they can't find it. Else I guess I'll just have to start fresh like you said...

 

[Taz Mangus]

I did the login check and found nothing. I had already cleared Safari's extensions and cookies. Whatever this problem is, it's deep. Think I'll have Apple look at it and see if they can't find it. Else I guess I'll just have to start fresh like you said...

Create a new user account and see if you still get the spam in Safari in the new user account.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Disable all your Safari extensions.

 

[redheeler]

@brinary001 Scan using a program called Adware Medic.

 

[BenAigen]

@brinary001 Scan using a program called Adware Medic.

Adware Medic has now been updated to Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac.

Ben

 

[Weaselboy]

https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/mac/

Sounds like you have some malware on there, here is the link to the app Malwarebytes others mentioned. Download and run that and see what it finds.

 

[brinary001]

Thank you all for the advice. As soon as I get off work I'll try the user account thing that @Taz Mangus suggested and then download malware bytes and report back.

 

[brinary001]

MALWARE BYTES IS THE BEST SOFTWARE I'VE EVER USED!!! Found that crap in just seconds and after a quick restart, my browsers seem to be back to normal. It worked better than the Sweeper app I bought for ten dollars from the App Store. Though to be fair, it just might not catch things like this and is mainly good for multipurpose security. Anyway, thank you for the referral!

P.S. I did the new account test and it was still present on it, so it was system deep.