Have I got malware on my new MAC?

well, yes, it's theoretically possible ... but very unlikely. re: macusersforum ... are you sure you didn't mistype the address?

i'd check out the link if, er, you'd posted a link.

best way to get peace of mind is to download tiger cache cleaner, which is a) ace and b) the simplest way to install the clamAV anti-virus software.

Macs can get malware? I thought they trumpeted about how this never happened?

Sorry, here's the link. I had so very many problems on my PC, so it's possible I'm being a little paranoid! I will investigate the cache cleaner you mention, thanks.

http://www.macusersforum.com

I have just turned my OS X firewall on in System Prefs. oh dear..Presumably, that's something I should have done before ever going on the net (2 months ago), but I only found out about it today.

xpost to trayce

well, at some point someone is going to write a piece of malware for the mac. stands to reason, doesn't it? if you went around going: "hey, nobody ever kicks me in the balls! i've never been kicked in the balls in my life!" then eventually someone's gonna hoof you in the knackers.

it's not that macs are super-secure. it's simply that it hasn't happened yet.

i've never in my entire life come across a piece of mac malware. but that doesn't mean it's never going to happen. for all i know, a terrifying new example was written last week and has found its way onto rib dinner's HD.

dull-ish macnewsworld story.

Hold it, this is odd. Just tried the link I posted myself - it went through to the real site. But, when again I try to go into the site from a google search, I get the redirected porn. Could someone google the site to put my mind at rest?

and a link to tiger cache cleaner. which is good for all sorts of other stuff, too.

that link works fine for me (ie no pr0n) ... i tried a few common mis-types and didn't get any either.

i wouldn't worry unduly. like i say, though: the only way you're going to get proper peace of mind is to run some kind of test, and i reckon TCC is by far and away the best. YMMV; other mac-types round here might have different recommendations.

xpost: okay, will do.

aye, it's the link from google that's the problem. first time i tried, it connect me to bit-something dot com and tried to scare me about malware ("download our cleaner now!")

second time, it took me to kjski dot org, which seems to be a porn, pills an' gambling search engine :)

hope this puts your mind at rest. that said, i can't recommend TCC enough anyway, so check it out if you want. or not.

but i'd stake my reputation (ha) on there being nothing wrong with your mac.

That's a relief. Thanks very much for googling, and for subjecting yourself to those same sleazy redirections. I will definitely consider getting TCC.

I am really loving my Mac. Those pop-up's weren't my problem, it seems, and you were right grimly fiendish - no malware seems to have been installed.

Is it true that a Mac user is always prompted for their administrator password before proceeding with any installation, legit or malware, as a security measure built into Mac OS X? If this is the case, I couldn't have possibly installed any malware unintentionally, but those pop ups were a worry!

hello again. yep, that's how it works in the majority of cases ... not all, though. depends if it's a system-level installation or just you copying a file into yr applications directory.

causes no end of hilarity when people forget the password they didn't need to use for six months :/

glad you're enjoying the machine, anyway.

It's a v.good idea to create a separate admin account from the one you use on a day-to-day basis. You can still install software, but it will ask for your admin password at that point. Then you're properly safe from malicious installs. It does mean you have to type this password when you repair permissions too, but that's not much of a price to pay.

Repair permissions as a routine maintenance step = voodoo

Well yes, possibly, but it has its uses from time to time.

iphone trojan in the wild

i find that if you print A LOT permissions will need periodic repair. printer drivers are always getting bad permissions.

http://www.macjournals.com/news/2008/01/09#a90

What's "useless" is to repair permissions as if it were some form of necessary system maintenance. It's not, or Apple would have set up the daily, weekly, or monthly automatic launchd tasks to do it for you. In fact, Panther and Tiger both had to add extra code to undo the damage caused by people repairing permissions frequently for no reason at all. Nothing in the Mac OS X rules required that installer receipts have the correct and final permissions for all files installed—a post-installation script could have, and sometimes did, set permissions depending on the configuration of your system. But if you "repair permissions" every day (or hourly) "just to be safe," you undo that work and leave permissions incorrect. Apple had to add mechanisms in the Installer and Disk Utility to work around this unanticipated problem.

hahahahahaha

'repairing permissions'? What, from people doing chmod 777 on system stuff?

lololol mac users, esp of the pre osx, are so fucking full of bs voodoo. I guess years of "rebuilding the desktop" do this. never read the comments on tuaw.com, tom

I never read anything devoted to apple

even "rebuilding the desktop" was never supposed to be something you did as a preventative measure or whatever

Well, no but it was still a voodoo fix:

http://www.essentialmac.com/fix/rebuild.html

Actually this page contradicts you: http://www.essentialmac.com/fix/maintenance.html

Rebuild your desktop (monthly)

http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/repair_permissions_voodoo

Arguing that you (a) run Repair Permissions all the time and (b) have no permission problems, and then drawing the conclusion that there’s a cause-and-effect relationship there, is like arguing that your diligent avoidance of sidewalk cracks has a causal relationship to the fact that your mother’s back is doing just fine. Troubleshooting computers is science, not magic.

The worst mac users are people like K-8 librarians who had to support front line crappy old macs for years against the mongol hordes of bright kids getting around internet filters, etc.