Let’s be clear: antivirus software for your Mac is not essential. If you follow the basic “common sense” practices covered above, the chances of infection remain low. Even with an antivirus, your system could fall victim to a new, undocumented infection. Wondering how many viruses exist for the Mac? Here is a list recent Mac malware attacks, viruses for Apple computers, and security threats that Mac users have suffered Despite Apple's best efforts.
You may have heard it's said that Macs don’t get viruses. That there’s no Apple virus. You may even have said it yourself. Sadly, it’s not true. According to AppleInsider portal, the number of detected Mac viruses jumped up 60% in 2019. And, it’s not just viruses you have to be wary of. There are all sorts of different forms of malware, from bits of code that download themselves and show you adverts for things you have no interest in, to really nasty bugs that steal your personal data.
How do I know if my Mac has a virus?
Before you remove a virus from a Mac, you need to be sure it actually has one. We’ve covered that in more detail in this article but here are a few pointers.
- Your Mac starts behaving erratically and doing things you don’t expect;
- Your Mac starts running very slowly, as if something is hogging the processor;
- You start seeing adverts on your desktop;
- You find software or applications you didn’t install.
- An app asks for your administrator password
These symptoms may mean your Mac has a virus, although there could be other explanations.
How to remove a virus from a Mac
Thankfully, there are lots of ways to do it. And Mac virus removal doesn’t have to cost money.
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1. Delete browser extensions
One of the most common types of malware comes in the form of browser extensions. Even extensions that aren’t particularly malicious can be annoying, and if you didn’t deliberately install them, they’re malware. Here’s how to get rid of unwanted browser extensions.
Safari
- Launch Safari.
- Click Safari in the top menu, then choose Safari Extensions.
- Look down the list and click on any extensions that look suspicious. Read the description of the extension. If you don’t remember installing it, click Uninstall.
- Repeat until you’ve removed all the extensions you don’t want.
Chrome
- Launch Chrome.
- Click on the 3-dot icon in the upper right corner.
- Select More Tools and choose Extensions from the menu that appears.
- Look over the extensions in the browser window and click Remove on any that you don’t recognise.
Firefox
- Launch Firefox.
- Click the 3-line (hamburger) icon at the top right corner.
- Choose Add-ons
- Click the Extensions tab and remove on any you don’t recognise.
2. Uninstall apps
Malware comes in lots of different forms. And it even comes disguised as security software to help you get rid of viruses! Devious, huh?
If you’ve inadvertently downloaded an app that turns out to be a virus, you need to uninstall it immediately. There are a couple of ways to do this. Here’s the hard way.
- Go to your applications folder and drag the app to the Trash.
- Go to your ~/Library folder and look in the Application support folder for any files related to the app and drag those to the Trash.
- Look in the other folders in ~/Library, especially Launch Agents and Launch Daemons and remove any files related to the app from there. But be careful, if you remove files used by legitimate app you could cause lots of problems.
- Repeat Step 3 for your Mac’ main Library folder.
The easy way: Uninstall apps in a few clicks
- Download and launch CleanMyMac X.
- Click Uninstaller.
- Check the box next to the application name.
- Click Uninstall.
If you don’t know the name of the application, it’s more difficult. But if you use CleanMyMac, all you have to do is scroll through the list of applications and look for any you don’t recognise or don’t need and remove them. CleanMyMac removes every trace of an app, including files that you may overlook when you remove applications manually. This is particularly important for viruses, so it’s much better to use CleanMyMac.
What's makes this method even better, is that CleanMyMac X also shows you app leftovers that remained after the main app is gone.
What's makes this method even better, is that CleanMyMac X also shows you app leftovers that remained after the main app is gone.
3. Use a malware removal tool
While the above steps work very well in lots of cases, sometimes the Mac virus removal means using a dedicated application to scan and remove malware from your Mac.
![Virus Virus](https://www.macexpertguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Norton-Antivirus-12-Mac.jpg)
There are lots of these applications available, and many of them are either free or allow you to at the very least scan your Mac for free to find out whether you need to take action. Be careful, however. It’s important to choose a tool from a reputable vendor. If you just google ‘Mac antivirus tool’ some of the results may well be for tools that are themselves malicious and instead of removing viruses from your Mac will infect it. We recommend using CleanMyMac X.
It can identify thousands of malware threats, including adware, spyware, ransomware, worms, cryptocurrency miners. And if CleanMyMac finds something suspicious, it will offer immediate removal. Here’s how to perform a full system scan:
- Download CleanMyMac X (free download) and launch the app.
- Click on the Malware Removal tab.
- Click Scan.
- Click Remove.
4. Escape the virus: Create a new user profile
Usually viruses are attached to a particular user profile on your computer. In this way they are able to seize control of your admin profile. But you can start if from scratch and create a new user on your Mac. Don't worry, you will be able to transfer all your important data from one user to another.
Go to Apple menu > System Preferences, click Users & Groups. https://treemine962.weebly.com/blog/database-for-mac-os.
- Click the lock icon , then type in your admin password.
- Use the plus sign to add new user profile
To move your important information from one user to another, you will need to access the Shared folder.
Click on the Finder > Go to Folder..
Paste in this: /Users
Can you see the Shared folder? Here you can copy the needed files from your old user account. Hurray, you've started a clean, virus-free life!
Click on the Finder > Go to Folder..
Paste in this: /Users
Can you see the Shared folder? Here you can copy the needed files from your old user account. Hurray, you've started a clean, virus-free life!
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Bonus tip: Clean up your login items
Login items are apps that launch automatically upon startup. Malware programs would often sneak into your login items without you knowing. How to prevent them from launching?
Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences
Click Users & Groups
Click on the Login items tab
Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences
Click Users & Groups
Click on the Login items tab
From here you can manage them using the [+] and [—] buttons.
How to disable the invisible agents
Some small supporting applications never show up in the Login items. They are called the Launch agents and may as well be hacked by viruses. You can find them with the universal Mac cleaner, CleanMyMac. This app is notarized by Apple, so you are safe using it.
Download the cleaner here — the link to a free edition
Launch the app and go to the Optimization tab
Click Launch agents
How many apps do you see there? Remove any flash players, automatic updaters, or everything else that you find suspicious. Even if you deleted the main app itself, its launch agents may still occupy your drive. Here is what I have:
Download the cleaner here — the link to a free edition
Launch the app and go to the Optimization tab
Click Launch agents
How many apps do you see there? Remove any flash players, automatic updaters, or everything else that you find suspicious. Even if you deleted the main app itself, its launch agents may still occupy your drive. Here is what I have:
To prevent your Mac from infection, the above app has a real-time monitor tool. It sees that no harmful apps place their code in your Launch Agents. It monitors several such locations that could be gateways for viruses.
How to get rid of virus on a Macbook Pro (or any other Mac) if all else fails
If you’ve run through all the steps above and are still having problems trying to remove a virus from a Mac, the next step is to restore from a Time Machine backup. The benefit of restoring from Time Machine is that you can do it quickly and easily by booting into the recovery partition and you can choose to backup to a state just before your Mac started behaving erratically.
The downside of this option is that any work you’ve done since the backup you restore from will be lost. You could manually copy files from your Mac to another drive or cloud storage service before you restore and then copy them back afterwards. However, if one of those files is infected, you risk contaminating your Mac all over again. If there are documents you really need and that aren’t backed up elsewhere, use one of the antivirus tools above to run a scan on them before you copy them to another disk. That way you’ll know they’re safe.
Here’s how to restore from a Time Machine backup
- Make sure you’re connected to your Time Machine backup drive.
- Restart your Mac, holding down the Command and R keys until you see the Apple logo. When the macOS Utilities screen appears, choose Restore from a Time Machine Backup. Click Continue.
- Choose the last backup before your Mac started misbehaving or you suspect you were infected with a virus.
Your Mac will now return to the state it was in when you made that backup.
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If you don’t have a Time Machine backup to restore from, the last resort is to reinstall macOS. This is a ground-zero approach. You’ll need to wipe your startup drive completely clean and start again. That means re-installing all your applications and copying all your data back to your Mac afterwards. If you have a recent backup of your data, from before your Mac became infected, you can use that to copy data from after you re-install. If not, you’ll need to back up important files now — but scan them with an antivirus tool first to make sure they’re not infected.
To perform a clean install of macOS, you’ll need a bootable installer disk. Creating one is beyond the scope of this article, but there is a comprehensive guide here.
Once you’ve made your bootable installer, plug it into your Mac, go to System Preferences, choose Startup Disk and select the disk you just plugged in. Restart your Mac, holding down Command-R and do the following:
Best Virus Protection For Mac
- When the macOS Utilities screen appears, select Reinstall a new copy of macOS. Click Continue and then Continue again when the next window appears.
- Agree to the terms and conditions and select your Mac’s internal disk.
- Click Install. Wait for your Mac to restart.
- Your Mac will startup as if it’s a new Mac and you’ll need to go through the process of setting it up from scratch.
- Once you’ve set it up, copy back the files you need from the backup and that you know aren’t infected.
As you can see, there are many different ways to remove a virus from a Mac, depending on how badly infected it is and what kind of virus it is. The main thing to remember is if you suspect your Mac is infected, don’t worry. It can be fixed!
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If web browsers on your Mac are being redirected to Bing, it’s a sign of virus activity that requires fixing and reverting Internet settings to their defaults.
Update: October 2019
Custom browsing settings are among the fundamentals of user-friendly Internet navigation. Ideally, you define the preferences once and enjoy the seamless online experience further on. Cybercriminals, though, have got a twisted perspective in this regard. Some of their troublemaking contrivances bypass the admin permission stage and modify the most important defaults in web browsers installed on a contaminated host. That’s exactly what the Bing redirect virus does to a Mac. It reroutes all searches entered by the victim to bing.com. In other words, every time you try to look up a keyword or phrase via, say, Google or Yahoo!, a stealth script is invoked that changes the destination page to Bing search results.
The Mac users who are confronted with this brain-twisting scenario can’t seem to revert to the right configuration by commonplace means. Getting to the custom settings pane in Safari, Chrome or Firefox and typing the preferred engine’s URL – or selecting the desired provider on the list – turns out to be a no-go. At least, the “repair” won't stay in effect beyond the next browser startup event. The explanation for this is trivial. The Bing redirect virus continues to run in the background and will be altering the preset in an iterative fashion. Therefore, it’s not until you spot the culprit and obliterate it that the problem will be solved. Speaking of the e-perpetrators’ motivation, it’s entirely a matter of traffic monetization. They leverage the infection to obtain and maintain control of the victim’s browsing routine. By partnering with merchants and advertisers, the virus authors benefit from every unique page hit. The shady business model may boil down to pay per visit, pay per click – you name it.
This rerouting problem has nothing to do with an informed decision on the victim’s end. The malicious app usually slithers into a Mac alongside ostensibly legit software. This is what’s called bundling, a method that results in installing several programs under the guise of one. Some users have reported the Bing redirect virus starting to cause problems after they installed and activated the Microsoft Office suite. Some start encountering these issues after falling victim to the fake Adobe Flash Player update hoax. In the latter case, a rogue “Your Flash Player is out of date” popup appears on a malicious website or one compromised by malefactors. By applying the malware-riddled update, the user unwittingly opts for Bing as their default search provider. Additionally, there has been some feedback about the redirect culprit infiltrating Macs alongside a fake system optimizer like Mac Cleanup Pro or another one from the same lineage.
Another frequently reported stratagem has to do with Search Baron, a fishy service that bundles with harmless-looking software and pretends to improve one’s web search experience. Instead of following through with its claims, though, this malicious app changes a victim’s Internet navigation preferences with a rogue landing page at searchbaron.com without due permission. As a result, a regular web search instance will be returning the unwanted site first, and from there the traffic will automatically travel to Bing. The user’s only role in this hoax is to watch this merry-go-round of redirects taking place over and over, and to forget about personalization of the browsing routine until a fix is applied.
It’s noteworthy that, although the core applications in these setup clients vary, all of these occurrences have one common denominator. They are downloaded from fishy dubious websites promoting uncertified or cracked versions of popular utilities. The attack may also be backed by a clickbait campaign or other form of malvertising surreptitiously injected into legit sites. Furthermore, it’s quite likely that the actual name of the adware is Genieo – that’s a notorious malvertising entity wreaking havoc in the Mac world for years.
The key point regarding the Bing redirect virus is that the issue won’t vanish on its own. No browser update or regular manual reconfiguring will take care of the infection. Under the circumstances, the only viable countermeasure is to get rid of the malicious code proper, reset the affected browsers to their original state and then adjust them to your likes again. The how-to’s below cover all of these steps in detail.
Bing redirect virus manual removal for Mac
The steps listed below will walk you through the removal of this malicious application. Be sure to follow the instructions in the order specified.
- Open up the Utilities folder as shown below
- Locate the Activity Monitor icon on the screen and double-click on it
- Under Activity Monitor, find Genieo or some other that appears suspicious, select it and click Quit Process
- A dialog should pop up, asking if you are sure you would like to quit the troublemaking process. Select the Force Quit option
- Click the Go button again, but this time select Applications on the list. Find the entry for Genieo on the interface or some other one that clearly doesn’t belong there, right-click on it and select Move to Trash. If user password is required, go ahead and enter it
- Now go to Apple Menu and pick the System Preferences option
- Select Accounts and click the Login Items button. The system will come up with the list of the items that launch when the computer is started up. Locate Genieo or other potentially unwanted app there and click on the “-“ button
Get rid of Bing redirect virus in web browser on Mac
To begin with, settings for the web browser that got hit by the Bing redirect virus should be restored to their default values. The overview of steps for this procedure is as follows:
- Remove Bing virus from Safari
- Open the browser and go to Safari menu. Select Preferences in the drop-down list
- Once the Preferences screen appears, hit the Privacy tab at the top. Find the option that says Remove All Website Data and click on it
- The system will display a confirmation dialog that also includes a brief description of what the reset does. Specifically, you may be logged out of some services and encounter other changes of website behavior after the procedure. If you’re okay with that, go ahead and click the Remove Now button
- In order to selectively clear data generated by certain websites only, not all of them, hit the Details button under the Privacy section of Safari Preferences
- This feature will list all websites that have stored potentially sensitive data, including cache and cookies. Select the one, or ones, that might be causing trouble and click the appropriate button at the bottom (Remove or Remove All). Click the Done button to exit.
- Remove Bing.com redirect from Google Chrome
- Open Chrome, click the More (⁝) icon in the top right-hand part of the window, and select Settings in the drop-down
- When on the Settings pane, select Advanced
- Scroll down to the Reset settings section. Under the Restore settings to their original defaults option, click the Reset settings button
- Confirm the Chrome reset on a dialog that will pop up. When the procedure is completed, relaunch the browser and check it for malware activity.
- Remove Bing redirect virus from Mozilla Firefox
- Open Firefox and select Help – Troubleshooting Information
- On the page that opened, click the Reset Firefox button
Get rid of Bing redirect virus Mac using Freshmac removal tool
When confronted with malicious code like the Bing redirect virus on Mac, you can neutralize its toxic impact by leveraging a specially crafted system utility. The Freshmac application (read review) is a perfect match for this purpose as it delivers essential security features along with must-have modules for Mac optimization.
This tool cleans unneeded applications and persistent malware in one click. It also protects your privacy by eliminating tracking cookies, frees up disk space, and manages startup apps to decrease boot time. On top of that, it boasts 24/7 tech support. The following steps will walk you through automatic removal of the Bing redirect infection from Mac.
- Download Freshmac installer onto your machine. Double-click the Freshmac.pkg file to trigger the installer window, select the destination disk and click Continue. The system will display a dialog asking for your password to authorize the setup. Type the password and click Install Software.
- Once the installation has been completed, Freshmac will automatically start a scan consisting of 5 steps. It scans cache, logs, unused languages, trash, and checks the Mac for privacy issues.
- The scan report will then display your current system health status and the number of issues detected for each of the above categories. Click the Fix Safely button to remove junk files and address privacy issues spotted during the scan.
- Check whether the Bing redirect problem has been fixed. If it perseveres, go to the Uninstaller option on Freshmac GUI. Locate an entry that appears suspicious, select it and click Fix Safely button to force-uninstall the unwanted application.
- Go to Temp and Startup Apps panes on the interface and have all redundant or suspicious items eliminated as well. The Bing redirect virus shouldn’t be causing any further trouble.
FAQs
It depends on whether Bing was set as the default search engine with or without your consent. If the tweak doesn’t stem from an informed decision on your end, then you are dealing with a virus that bypassed regular authorization when putting the unwanted changes into effect.
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In case this isn’t a malware issue, simply go to your browser’s preferences, proceed to the search settings, and pick the right search provider on the list. For instance, in Safari you need to open the Preferences screen, then click the Search tab, and opt for Google in the ‘Search engine’ area. This way, Bing will be automatically deselected. The procedure is similar for the other popular web browsers.
The fix isn’t nearly as easy if malicious code is involved. The Bing redirect virus will prevent you from changing the default search engine via the commonplace technique. The search providers may be grayed out and not clickable. In this scenario, you’ll need to remove the harmful app before reverting to Google manually. Try to turn off all the extensions in the malfunctioning browser for a start. If this doesn’t do the trick, follow the virus cleanup walkthrough in the article above.
To begin with, this is a telltale sign of malware activity. Your Mac has been most likely infected with a strain that changes the custom web surfing settings without your awareness and approval. The distorted configuration of your browser makes the Internet traffic travel through a merry-go-round of intermediary URLs, with Bing.com being the landing page. The transitional domains may include searchbaron.com and low-quality ad networks. Bing is, essentially, a smokescreen that adds a false sense of legitimacy to the attack. The malware operators benefit from the interim hits to auxiliary services that aren’t easy to notice with the naked eye.
The root cause of this search engine takeover is malicious code that spreads in a surreptitious way. The common entry points span application bundling and drive-by downloads triggered on compromised or harmful websites. Once inside a Mac, the toxic code alters the search settings in Safari, Chrome or Firefox (depending on which one is set as default) so that the Internet navigation follows a rogue route and keeps resolving Bing in a recurrent fashion.
A rule of thumb is to eliminate the underlying cause of the hijack first. Otherwise, the issue will re-emerge no matter how hard you may try to restore the right browsing preferences. Keep in mind that this is a malware issue, so it needs to be sorted out accordingly.
Manual troubleshooting is a good starting point that’s definitely worth a shot. Look for suspicious entries in the Activity Monitor, Applications, and Login Items as outlined in the appropriate section of the tutorial above. If you find sketchy items that clearly don’t belong there, go ahead and delete them. Then, reset the affected web browser using the step-by-step guide provided in the article.
In some cases, the hijack may turn out too severe to be remedied manually. If so, consider opting for a procedure based on the use of an automated cleaning utility. The tool will detect and delete both the non-obfuscated and hidden components of the Bing redirect virus so that you can safely rectify the mutilated browsing settings without malicious interference.
Free Antivirus For Mac
This technique of resetting your MacBook Air to its factory state should only be applied in a persistent Bing redirect scenario where all the other fixes end up futile. Be advised, though, that you need to back up all your personal data first otherwise you’ll lose it for good. Thankfully, macOS is equipped with the Time Machine utility that allows you to back up all the files to an external storage device without using any third-party apps. The procedure is as follows:
- Plug the backup disk into your Mac
- Open Time Machine and click Select Backup Disk
- Pick the external drive you’d like to back up your MacBook Air to
- Enable the Encrypt backups option for extra security, click Use Disk, and wait for the backup to be completed.
To perform the reset proper, boot up your MacBook Air in Recovery Mode. This is doable by long-pressing Command + R keys when your computer is starting up or restarting. Release the buttons once you see the Apple logo and wait for the macOS Utilities window to appear. Here’s what you need to do next:
- Select Disk Utility in the macOS Utilities screen and click Continue
- Go to View and select Show All Devices
- Choose your hard disk and click Erase
- If you are using macOS High Sierra or later, select APFS in the Format area. Otherwise, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system
- Click Erase again.
Now that your hard disk has been wiped, you need to reinstall the operating system. Follow these steps to do it:
- In the macOS Utilities screen, select Reinstall macOS
- Click Continue
- Follow subsequent prompts to complete the reinstall.
Once you start fresh with your MacBook Air, you can import your data from the backup disk and customize the system along with the software you use.
When faced with the Bing redirect virus issue on MacBook Pro, you may experience sluggish system performance – occasionally to a point where the laptop becomes hardly responsive or even freezes. If this happens, you may need to force-restart the machine. Here’s a quick overview of the possible scenarios and the appropriate ways to reboot.
- If macOS appears to be frozen but you can still use your mouse, point the cursor to the Apple icon in the upper left-hand part of the screen, click it and select the Restart option in the drop-down menu.
- In case you are using a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and the system isn’t responding altogether, you should long-press the Touch ID button (which is also the Power button, by the way) until the laptop restarts. Importantly, it’s not a matter of simply placing your finger on the sensor like you routinely do to log in – you actually need to push it and wait for the reboot to take place.
- One more method is to press and hold a combo of the Command (⌘) and Control (Ctrl) keys while also pushing the Touch ID button. If you are using an older MacBook Pro that has an optical drive, press Command (⌘) and Control (Ctrl) and the Eject button simultaneously.
That’s it. As soon as you have restarted your MacBook Pro, get down to the virus cleaning job to ensure proper performance of the laptop further on.