what kind of mac viruses run in the backround?

[paranoidpete12]

so i'll swallow my pride. sorry to be gross and disgusting but i was sitting on the toilet hunched over browsing on my mac osx i was on http://theadminzone its a safe site and a forum for webmasters i was trying to click on a thread but i think i accidentally downloaded something. i think maybe i accidentally tried to download the site or the site logo. (i had pretty little control over clicking the thread while hunched over on the toilet) when i checked my chrome chrome downloads it said: "download failed forbidden" HOWEVER in my mac downloads it was NOT there i scanned my mac osx with avast and saw no viruses

BUT anyways i heard macs can get viruses running in the backround. How do I check?

what are some examples of viruses that run in the mac backround of the activity monitor?

THIS IS unlikely but im just ocd

thanks for your time

 

[prisstratton]

The description of your circumstances while this was happening was totally NOT REQUIRED, I cannot believe that you actually decided to share that information.

Whatever………

There are no viruses (in the true definition) in the Mac world. There are trojans and other malware, but these usually require user permission for them to run.

If you think you picked up some malware run this:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/

……….and just to fun with you, I think you left the oven on.

 

[paranoidpete12]

The description of your circumstances while this was happening was totally NOT REQUIRED, I cannot believe that you actually decided to share that information.

Whatever………

There are no viruses (in the true definition) in the Mac world. There are trojans and other malware, but these usually require user permission for them to run.

If you think you picked up some malware run this:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/

……….and just to fun with you, I think you left the oven on.

Tru again sorry to be gross but I scanned with avast and it looks clean.

what kinds of malware runs in the background? I went to activity monitor on Mac OS X and looked at background activity I looked up all the programs running at the time and apple confirmed they were normal.

BUT do you know of any malicious programs that run in the background?

How do I find key loggers? (Just paranoid)

Thank you for your time.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

Run MalwareBytes as @prisstratton said. It'll find anything bad.

 

[prisstratton]

I do not know the name of any specific malware that might run in the background, I am sure that there are some, but I have never personally ran across any.

Download and run Malwarebytes as I suggested in my previous post and you should be good.

I have now been using Mac’s for the last seven years or so. I came from a Windows world prior to that, so I was always paranoid about malware. Old habits die hard, particularly when it comes to virus and malware scanning and I still check my system every week. But, in all of that time I have not once found anything on my system.

 

[paranoidpete12]

I do not know the name of any specific malware that might run in the background, I am sure that there are some, but I have never personally ran across any.

Download and run Malwarebytes as I suggested in my previous post and you should be good.

I have now been using Mac’s for the last seven years or so. I came from a Windows world prior to that, so I was always paranoid about malware. Old habits die hard, particularly when it comes to virus and malware scanning and I still check my system every week. But, in all of that time I have not once found anything on my system.

the issue is that i already have avast running in the backround 2 antivirus systems running together can mess eachother up

would the avast scan i have done be fine?

besides I DID have a legit virus a year ago(rootkit from utorrent) and malwarebytes did NOT catch it!

HOWEVER I tried to download filezilla and avast DID catch the virus

thanks for your time

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

Get rid of Avast IMO.

 

[paranoidpete12]

Get rid of Avast IMO.

why? also i saw callhistoryplugin helper running in the backround is that a virus/malware or is it just a process running in the backround?

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

I work in a corporate IT environment running Macs and we use MWB and ClamXav with no issues; I don't see the need for Avast.

Also, if Avast didn't find anything and you refuse to run any other scanners, you are SOL.

 

[paranoidpete12]

I work in a corporate IT environment running Macs and we use MWB and ClamXav with no issues; I don't see the need for Avast.

Also, if Avast didn't find anything and you refuse to run any other scanners, you are SOL.

would it be sufficient enough to run avast and malwarebytes?

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

yes.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Note that Malwarebytes for Mac does not run in background. It only runs when you run a scan. It addresses items that most conventional antivirus programs do not address, so it's a very good supplement.

 

[thomasareed]

what are some examples of viruses that run in the mac backround of the activity monitor?

Well, nearly all of them. There are very few pieces of Mac malware that don't try to run in the background somehow. This is not really a meaningful question, though, since what you're really trying to find out is how to identify and remove such things, which I believe has been more than adequately answered at this point.

One thing I'll point out is that, at this time, there's no known malware for Mac capable of getting installed simply by visiting a website. You would have to download something, then deliberately open it.

 

[Les Kern]

Avast is useless, but here's some advice that isn't: Don't sit too long on the toilet or you'll get hemorrhoids.