Newbie on Mac's request..

Kitten Kong

Kitten Kong

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I know < nuffink when it comes to Mac's.

So here goes.

74 yr old client, has a macbook pro A1708?.

He calls into the workshop, explains what he uses it for..

basically bit of surfing, zero social media, purchasing etc.

then wait for it.

He looks around to ensure theres no females and children around (not counting Kookster and Molls, who are at his feet as hes giving them treats...)

We (wife and I), use it to watch vintage pron. As at my age, I find it a bit hard to get it up!.

(I get my hand cleaner out lol).

Anyhow, he wants a form of av on it. Is BD for Mac's any good?. Does it work on GZ, or is it a stand alone product?

He is getting a heap of calls apparently from Virgin, explaining that he has a virus on his machine. What programs would I use to clean it and or check for any malware activity etc?

Thanks all
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:)
 
ya - BDGZ works on Mac. He *may* have a virus, but BD and MBAM should resolve most issues.

I always want to know details from an ISP (like MAC address, ports utilized, etc.) that can help me ID whether or not this is legit or not. I mean, it could be legit, but for users on dynamic IP's (99.9% of all residential), I see ISP's blaming the user of a "bad ip" even though they only got that new IP last night... so they are getting blamed for someone else's wrong-doing. And on a Mac, I would think even less of an ISP driven virus alert.

Ask him honestly, where are you surfing for porn? If it is pornhub, then safe. Just using common sense first, then technology.
 
Nige said:
He is getting a heap of calls apparently from Virgin, explaining that he has a virus on his machine.
Click to expand...
That's nothing to do with what's on his machine. His number must be on a list of people that are likely to fall for scams, that's all. Maybe he gave his phone number to a survey or some such, or maybe he's fallen for a tech support scam in the past.

If he's worried about having a virus due to his nocturnal activities (or mid-afternoon ones for that matter!) you could offer to re-install the OS. It's quite easy on a Mac. I did one last week for the first time, holding Command-R on boot goes to a recovery mode which has the Disc Utilities app allowing a clone of the current drive to a spare via USB, and allows re-install of the OS which is downloaded from the internet on demand. At the end of the OS install you are offered the option of restoring data and/or apps/settings from another drive (e.g. the cloned copy).
 
Yep, BDGZ works but will not help much on browser based stuff which is the majority of whats out there. He could very well have installed a "helper" from a website that might have harvested his info. Also ISP's only call, at least over here, when an email account has been p0wnd. "They" probably recorded his IP, find it's Virgin, and then do some crawling to get the rest, especially if he's signed up anywhere.
 
I use Kaspersky on Mac's but I agree with others that maybe all he needs is a good, properly configured browser (Opera, Chrome, FF) with uBlock origin.
Nige said:
He is getting a heap of calls apparently from Virgin, explaining that he has a virus on his machine.
Click to expand...
This is not coming from Virgin. It's most likely a scammer calling.
 
Nige said:
He is getting a heap of calls apparently from Virgin, explaining that he has a virus on his machine. What programs would I use to clean it and or check for any malware activity etc?
Click to expand...
As others have said, this most likely is not due to anything he's doing on his machine. His number was most likely harvested in another manner. As you know, this could be a number of ways: a legit company he worked with had their database compromised, one of his friends on a social network could see it and their profile was compromised, someone else mistyped their number and used his on a form, he gave it out, he was previously a target of a scam (answering indicates it's a live line so scammers keep calling back), etc. He may have also gotten a tech support scam pop-up on the Mac, called the number and then they got it because he called them. :)

Really tough to track down exactly how this happened. Best bet is to assume your number is out there and to get defensive in protecting your number (and other data).

Some basic things he can do is to use an ad-blocker (I like uBlock Origin) and to not answer any unknown calls or even ones that look similar to his. If a company calls you and needs something, don't engage and instead call them back on their official line and see if it's legit.

Malwarebytes pitch: if you'd like, you can certainly use our Malwarebytes product for Mac and see if anything comes up (which is free). You could also use the real-time protection to proactively help (which $39.99 USD/year; tech pricing available in TEO). Our keys work on both Windows and Mac so maybe you've already got one of those available. If not, let me know.
 
Thanks All, appreciate the advice.

I’ll give him the advice, on a reload, and hope he will go for it.

Other than that, it’ll be what everyone has suggested here.
 
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