False Security Warning from Mac While Accessing PSE&M

Thank goodness I have not got Mac.

Just proves that you can never be too careful.

It's always good to check the source for these phishing emails - good for you! I suggest running Malwarbytes since the received message was caused by something. More than likely Malwarbytes will find an entry or 2 on your system and classify them as a pup (potentially unwanted program).

Yes, Craig is correct. Sorry I wasn't clear. It happened when I clicked on a picture that had been posted on our forum.

The alert itself is false, but a threat of some kind is probably real.

The popup alert was probably triggered by something on the hosting website of the image you clicked.

At this stage, it's unlikely that any "nasty" has been downloaded onto your Mac, but a precautionary scan to ease any concerns might be wise.  However, if you click the scan button, then obviously the form would then do it's dirty work on your Mac.

This form is a bit like unsolicited emails with attachments and links that contain viruses.  At least on a Windows PC, the attachments and links are essentially harmless until an unwary user actually clicks on them and opens them.  It is then that any viruses or other nasties in the attachment or links are potentially released onto your computer.

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These sorts of things can happen on Windows PC as well. If you ever go looking for free music, or free anything, downloads you are more vulnerable to have popups appear all of sudden saying  your computer is now infected and you need to click this button or link immediately to remove the infection. ** Never do that **.

Also the free download might have some nasty virus or trojan horse piggy backing on the back of the download file. So before actually opening ANY downloaded file, I always right-click it and select "Scan for viruses". This will use your default anti-virus application to scan the downloaded file prior to opening/executing it.

Andy - you are probably already aware, but in case you are not, if you find nothing unusual with the image itself, maybe have a look at the url the image came from as well. It might give you a clue as to whether some other "nasty" server side script is being called in addition to the image being displayed.

I decided to call them now. First they did a visual search and had me remove my cache folder and cookies folder also VCR Player and a few other applications (microsoft silverlight and I forget what else).

 However, being I do download free things from various sites to use with photoshop....fonts, images, brushes, png files etc. they thought it would be a good idea to run Malwarebytes as Peterj suggested.

They stayed on the line with me while I ran the scan which found one file that contained a number of folders. He then suggested I run the scan one more time which I did and everything is clean.

Hope I have not alarmed anyone and that this information might be helppful to someone else in the future.

Yes, I did mean VLC player and it was actually an Apple Support person who had recommended it to me originally so I certainly don't think that was the problem but being he said to remove it I did.