Access Denied - Can't install malwarebytes

[smileyserious]

Dear specialists, 

 

can you help me to have malwarebytes installed on my mac? I'm most likely infected through a Skype bit.ly link that I opened about a week ago. Since then I get strange behavior / messages like "too many request from your IP address" one website telling me I had probably a Virus on my computer (but I did not download anything there..). 

 

The strange thing is that I scanned with Sophos last week, he found something called Spigot, but could'nt remove it automatically. When I tried to remove it manually it wasn't found anymore and all total scans thereafter couldn't find any threats. A support told me to install MalwareBytes, but now I get the access denied icon - and I don't know how to proceed. Would appreciate if someone could help me to figure this out, patiently, as I'm no expert.

 

Thanks a lot in advance for any assistance!

Daniela

 

I'm using Mac OS X version 10.7.5. No backup available.

 

 

[treed]

Hi,

 

On OS X 10.7, you'll need to use a slightly older version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac:

 

Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac 1.0.2.8

 

It's unlikely that Spigot is causing the symptoms you're seeing, though. It's also quite possible that you don't have Spigot installed at all... if Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac doesn't detect what Sophos is detecting, that may be normal:

 

Why does another anti-virus app find things Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac misses?

 

Regarding the message you're seeing about too many IP addresses, can you elaborate on that? Are you seeing that with a particular site, or with every site, or is there a pop-up about that - asking you to call a phone number - that you can't get rid of? Or is it entirely different, and if so, how?

[smileyserious]

Hi!

 

Thanks so much for your reply!

 

I downloaded the older version and it worked! But it scanned real quickly within 20 seconds and couldn't find anything. Does it usually scan that fast?

 

Let me add to the story above: The friend from whom the link came from also sent a message to please not click on that link since it may be a virus or something. Unfortunately I read that message after I had clicked on it. 

 

But definitely strange things are happening since then. The too many requests from my IP happened to appear when I wanted to log in to Google Adwords. Then I got a similar message again today, but I don't remember what site, since I was browsing so many websites trying to find a solution for my problem... My boyfriend (we live together using the same internet network through wifi) has observed strange things too. Like his search engine all of a sudden changed to yahoo per default and - he got an email from Facebook telling him someone tried to log in from Dubai... I also got an email last week from google telling me there was a log in attempt from somewhere else. Aren't these all symptoms of some kind of malware? My boyfriend is going to re-format his macbook tonight. I'm doing a backup right now, but I have so much stuff, it will take me so long....

 

Is the only solution we got, to reset our systems? 

 

Thank you so much for your assistance! I really appreciate it!

 

Daniela

[treed]

Daniela,

 

20 seconds is not at all unusual... in fact, it's a little on the long side! Scans on my Macs here take 2-3 seconds. This is because we're not trying to look at every single file on the hard drive and compare to every single rule in the database. Each rule defines a specific thing or pattern to look for in a specific place.

 

As for the link you clicked, it's very unlikely that just clicking a link could have infected you with anything. There's no known Mac malware being distributed that way at the moment, so unless you've stumbled across something brand new, or unless you visited the link and then installed something that was downloaded from that page, you should be okay.

 

Your boyfriend, on the other hand, may be infected with adware. (Having the search engine suddenly change to a different one is a classic symptom of adware.) Erasing the hard drive and reinstalling from scratch is probably overkill. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac can probably fix that for him, and if it can't, our support staff would be happy to assist. (He can choose Contact Support from the Help menu in Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac to get assistance, or could post here.)

 

It's possible that, if his machine has been hitting particular sites really frequently due to the adware infection, that this could result in issues like you describe on other machines connecting from the same network.

 

Hope this helps!

[smileyserious]

Dear Tomas, 

 

you are an angel!

 

Guess what! You were right! Or in the words of my boyfriend: "It's superf***ing good!"

 

So we run Malwarebytes on his Macbook and it found actually 6 different items which we immediately deleted, we then restarted the machine and scanned it again and no more malware was found!! So you are probably just totally right, saying that my issues derived from his adware infection! 

 

You were such a big help! We are incredibly thankful! :) Hope this will give you good karma points for a long, long way in your life!  

 

All the best, 

Daniela (& Petur)

[smileyserious]

An additional note: It was Spigot Adware that was found! So maybe that makes sense with Sophos finding some items on my computer or network.. !

 

All the best, 

Daniela

[treed]

Daniela,

 

I'm glad I could help!

[12ritavt]

Hello, 

 

Thank you for the link to the Malwarebytes older version. I've installed it and ran it on my macbook, with the hope of removing MacKeeper. 

Sure enough, Malwarebytes detected it and I did try to remove it. However, theste were the messages I received when trying to delete MacKeeper: 

 

"Your trash has abnormal permissions. 

This program may not be able to move files to the trash. See the FAQ in the documentation for information on solving this problem."

 

And, when I press "OK":

 

"Error creating Malwarebytes Removals folder in your trash.

You probably have a permissions problem with your trash folder. See the FAQ in the documentation for how to address this."

 

I'm not aware of having any permissions problems with my trash folder and I haven't found any information in the documentation of Malwarebytes, under Help (there were no FAQ there). 

 

Any help would be most welcome. 

 

 

Hi,

 

On OS X 10.7, you'll need to use a slightly older version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac:

 

Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac 1.0.2.8

 

It's unlikely that Spigot is causing the symptoms you're seeing, though. It's also quite possible that you don't have Spigot installed at all... if Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac doesn't detect what Sophos is detecting, that may be normal:

 

Why does another anti-virus app find things Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac misses?

 

Regarding the message you're seeing about too many IP addresses, can you elaborate on that? Are you seeing that with a particular site, or with every site, or is there a pop-up about that - asking you to call a phone number - that you can't get rid of? Or is it entirely different, and if so, how?

[treed]

For help resolving the trash folder issue, follow the directions for repairing user folder permissions here:

 

https://support.malwarebytes.org/customer/en/portal/articles/2045753-why-does-anti-malware-for-mac-report-it-is-unable-to-access-certain-folders-?b_id=9511

[Uzee]

Unable to install on a Mac running 10.10.4

 

Ok, Safari on this Mac I'm working on is totally polluted w/ malware, lots of popups, unusable

 

So I downloaded Malwarebytes for Mac on a PC, copied to a flash drive, and inserted into the Mac.  I then copied the file from the flash drive to "Applications" on the Mac as instructed.  I try to open, but a window pops up telling me to copy the MBAM file into the "Applications" folder, but its already there.  So I read I needed to make a change to my security settings to allow apps to be installed from places other than the Apple app store.  So I did that, but still have the same problem.

 

Any ideas?

[treed]

You have put the wrong thing into the Applications folder. Don't put the MBAM-Mac-1.x.x.xx.dmg file into the Applications folder... move that back out to your desktop. Then, open that file and drag the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware icon from the window that opens into the Applications folder.

 

For full instructions, see:

 

https://support.malwarebytes.org/customer/en/portal/articles/2050091-how-do-i-install-anti-malware-for-mac-?b_id=9511

[Uzee]

Thanks.  I got MB installed and did a scan.  It said found some malware, and needed to reboot to completely remove, so I rebooted.

 

Unfortunately, my Safari is sill corrupted.  When I open it, I get a couple popups with the following message

 

 

From "apple-error-report.com":

Are you sure you want to leave this page?

YOUR APPLE COMPUTER HAS BEEN LOCKED*

Your Computer is infected with an adware or malware causing you to see this popup.

 This may happen due to obsolete virus protections.

 To fix, please call Apple Support at 1-877-398-5247 immediately. Please ensure you do not restart your computer to prevent data loss.

 Possibility of Data & Identity theft, if not fixed immediately.

 

Any suggestions?

[Uzee]

UPDATE:

 

I created a new user account, logged into it, and Safari works just fine.  However, when I log back into the main account, Safari is still corrupted

[treed]

When I open it, I get a couple popups with the following message

 

That is a scam website, not any kind of malware or adware installed on your computer. For more information, including how to get rid of the message, see:

 

http://www.thesafemac.com/tech-support-scam-pop-ups/

[Uzee]

Thanks, treed.  Yeah it was obviously a scam, so of course I didn't respond as instructed by the nefarious pop up.  Thank you for the link, I'm sure that would have been a much less time consuming fix than what I ended up doing.  After so much time wasted on this, I ended up doing a full Time Machine restore, from the day before Safari got corrupted.  Not pretty, but effective!