Virus question, have I been infected?

[dieseld]

Greetings, I'm fairly new to macs and really do like my ibook. I was surfing last night and a link took me to a blank page which caused the beach ball to run for awhile. A new window popped up that said I had a virus from nigeria that was trying to get my passwords and then asked if I wanted to go to a website to remove the virus. It gave me the option to cancel or continue. I selected continue and went to the new site that asked me to download some software to remove the virus. I didnt recongized anything on the site so I just exited the site and shutdown for the night. My question is, do I have a virus and if so what do you recommend to resolved or remove the virus.

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.

Great site

 

[MacDawg]

There are no known Mac specific viruses... so this was probably just a web scam. I wouldn't worry.

Woof, Woof – Dawg

 

[gekko513]

No, that was a scam to fool you into downloading something that possibly would infect you (or rather a Windows computer) with a virus if you had fallen for it.

Don't worry.

 

[Norouzi]

As the previous posters said, there are currently no Mac viruses. I get about 10 pop up's a day on my windows machine at work telling me that I have a virus, even though I have the latest version of Norton active and run a full system scan every night. It's just a scam to make you buy software, or download a real virus (if on a PC)

 

[DaftUnion]

Your computer's fine, mac's don't have viruses, even though the windows world wants you to think they do.

 

[GFLPraxis]

There are no viruses for Macs in the wild. Rather, it was a popup advertisement that claims "You have a virus, so you need to buy our software!"- either that, or it offers the software free and it's actually a virus. However, that virus would affect Windows, not a Mac.

You're fine.

 

[yenko]

Greetings, I'm fairly new to macs and really do like my ibook. I was surfing last night and a link took me to a blank page which caused the beach ball to run for awhile. A new window popped up that said I had a virus from nigeria that was trying to get my passwords and then asked if I wanted to go to a website to remove the virus. It gave me the option to cancel or continue. I selected continue and went to the new site that asked me to download some software to remove the virus. I didnt recongized anything on the site so I just exited the site and shutdown for the night. My question is, do I have a virus and if so what do you recommend to resolved or remove the virus.

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.

Great site

Next time don't click "continue". It's a SCAM.
You could always turn off features like Java and cookies and/or block pop-ups and re-enter the site if you just have to .

 

[iDM]

I'm going against the concensus, and I say you have a virus, a serious one at that. If you wish to remove please send $15,000 a month to my email address through PayPal. I also will accept 1 PowerMac with dual 30" ACD Monitors.

What you can do now to protect yourself however, is not believe a word i just said, and do nothing at all because if your on a Mac you do not have a virus.

You choose

 

[texlaw04]

Greetings, I'm fairly new to macs and really do like my ibook. I was surfing last night and a link took me to a blank page which caused the beach ball to run for awhile. A new window popped up that said I had a virus from nigeria that was trying to get my passwords and then asked if I wanted to go to a website to remove the virus. It gave me the option to cancel or continue. I selected continue and went to the new site that asked me to download some software to remove the virus. I didnt recongized anything on the site so I just exited the site and shutdown for the night. My question is, do I have a virus and if so what do you recommend to resolved or remove the virus.

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.

Great site

You should make it a habit never to click "continue" on a strange popup, even if you mostly use a Mac. While there is no known Mac virus, one never knows what someone will be able to create... Also, you wouldn't want to click on "continue" on a popup while using Windows on someone else's machine...if you don't download a virus when the popup itself loads, your odds of having a nice little present after clicking on "continue" increase exponentially.

Haven't we all had enough of these Nigerian scams?

 

[eva01]

hehehe i really love all these threads on this topic, honestly why would anyone ever hit continue on those popups, seriously now

 

[FFTT]

NO, You have not been infected!
At worst you might end up with some spam if you registered in any way.

Do yourself a favor and download Little Snitch personal firewall from either Version Tracker or Macupdate.

At least you'll know when your system is trying to connect somewhere.

You might also consider Brickhouse, IPnetSentry or Intego NetBarrier.

Until you've become a bit more net savvy, you should also set up
a secondary non administrative User account for your daily activities.

You can then limit any software installations and maintenance on your secondary account keep that option confined only to your primary administrative account.

 

[Marky_Mark]

Eva - you're really not being very helpful here, are you? This is the second thread I've read today where you have been deliberately disparaging to someone who has put aside their pride, and asked someone who knows more than them for a bit of help. The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

If you haven't got anything better to do with your time than belittling less experienced users, I suggest you join a group elsewhere.