I just got some strange new spam-type notifications

TidBITS Talk
1

I just got some strange new spam type of MacOS “Notifications” in the top right corner on my iMac running Ventura 13.3.1 (a).

Has anyone else had these. They have the “System Preferences” logo.

I got five in all and they started last night after I was off the computer. But, they just popped up a while ago.

The notification titles are:

  1. Viruses Found
  2. McAfee: PC is At Risk
  3. McAfee: Critical Virus Alert
  4. Someone is downloading files fr…
  5. Action Required.

I’ve never experienced this before. I’ve used Macs for 25 years!

Has anyone else experienced these?

I couldn’t include a screenshot.

I’ll run DetectX Swift, Virus Barrier Scanner and Malwarebytes for Mac in Free mode.

Update at 3:25pm CST:

These are MacOS “Notifications”, that pop up like any other “Notification” in the upper right hand corner of the desktop!!!. They might not be from MacOS but they act like them.

I just ran DetectX Swift, Virus Barrier Scanner and Malwarebytes for Mac in Free mode. Nothing was found in all three.

Update at 3:39pm CST:

Now those “Notification” have no icon!?!?!

2

While you are on a browser? What is the nature of the dialogue box that are notifying you? If this is only while you are browsing, ignore. Or flush your Safari cache and reboot. None of these notifications are from the Mac System.

1 Like
3

I’m 99.5% certain all of these are phishes. Free Malwarebytes might/should detect (I’m not familiar with the other products) if something has been put into your system. Otherwise, I agree with Ray. Good luck.

4

I’ve been getting email messages like this the last few weeks. After having a bad experience with MacAfee at a corporate job job decades ago, I’ve never even considered using them again. So I consider these messages to be 100% spam.

I just did a quick Google and found this recommendation:

“In the latest scam, the phishing email impersonates McAfee with an accurate color scheme and logo. It looks to be a marketing email to protect your computer. There’s a big red flag, though: The sender address leads is a long, strange string of characters.”

5

No!

These are Mac OS “Notifications”, that pop up like any other “Notification” in the upper right hand corner of the desktop!!!. I can send you a screenshot if you would like to see them.

6

They are almost surely from a spammy website.

Go into Safari, open Safari Settings (Cmd-,), go to the “Websites” pane, tap the “Notifications” in the left side, and “Deny” anything that you see there, unless there is a website listed from which you want to get notifications.

5 Likes
7

Thank you, Doug!!! I think that was it. There were only two, “Apple News” and a generic one with no name. And, the notifications are not available, not there any more.

I am pretty cautious, but must have clicked on something recently.

Thanks again for this tip/help, Doug!!!

8

My wife had the same notifications appear on her iMac a couple of weeks ago. I also found and blocked the unnamed generic notification via Safari’s preferences which resolved the problem.