MacBook Air Virus?

[lizzzi]

I accidentally made a typo while accessing my AviatorMasterCard online...typed AviationMasterCard instead...and started getting all these weird, hard- to- get- rid- of popups that warned me direly that my computer was infected and I should call this toll free number to get tech help getting the MacBook Air uninfected. I did not call it, of course, and managed to re-start the computer and seem to be back in business. Do I need to worry? Or do you think I avoided a scam and possible virus by not calling the toll free number?

[TheThirstyStag]

Download the free trial of ClamXAV (mac antivirus software) and run a full sweep.  If nothing comes up, I wouldn't worry about it.

[JJ saves]

Pretty sure you avoided the scam by re-starting your Mac. I have a MacBook Air and had this happen to me in the past. I completely shut it down and re-start without restoring previous history. Have not had problems since. Hope that helps!

[Deo]

If you're using a modern browser, simply visiting the wrong website cannot infect your computer with a virus.  However, downloading something and then running it, or installing the wrong addon/plugin can.

If the pop-ups were browser-based and only occurred when visiting the website, then they were probably just part of the website and there's nothing to worry about.  However, if you're still getting them (or worse, getting them without even opening a browser) then it's likely that you have malware installed.

I'm a computer scientist and professional software engineer and use a PC full time at work and for at least 3-4 hours at home each day. I don't use any anti-virus software and yet I have never had any malware or virus on my PC: it is still as fast as the day I installed Windows on it 5 years ago.

The average family PC has anti-virus software, yet is festering with all sorts of viruses / malware / addware and bloat.    My point is that being careful is infinitely more effective than relying on anti-virus software.

I will give you an analogy that sums up how effective anti-virus software is:

Imaging buying a pig that roams your house eating up undesirable things.  Is it now okay to let every stray dog in the neighbourhood into your house to poop all over the place, because you know that the pig will eventually chase it out and eat up the poop?  Definitely not!

The pig is like anti-virus software, and is about as effective at cleaning up viruses/malware as a pig is at chasing out stray dogs and eating up their poop. 

My policy is it to let neither the pig nor the stray dogs into my home in the first place.

[jeromedawg]

I accidentally made a typo while accessing my AviatorMasterCard online...typed AviationMasterCard instead...and started getting all these weird, hard- to- get- rid- of popups that warned me direly that my computer was infected and I should call this toll free number to get tech help getting the MacBook Air uninfected. I did not call it, of course, and managed to re-start the computer and seem to be back in business. Do I need to worry? Or do you think I avoided a scam and possible virus by not calling the toll free number?

You should be fine. For added peace of mind, you can do as suggested and run 1-2 anti-virus/anti-malware tools to sweep your system. More likely though you just hit a scam/spam site that generated tons of pop-ups and can be difficult to close out of (yes these do exist if you look in the wrong places). It's tricky because they make those browser pop-ups look like legit system errors.

Next time you get caught in one of these "pop-up loops" you can press this sequence of keys on your Mac and select the web browser to force quit out of: "ctrl-option-esc"

I would also recommend that you clear you clear your browser's history, cookies and cache.

[lizzzi]

Thanks for the help, everyone. Much appreciated.