While malware can't be entirely ruled out in your case, you are probably experiencing some kind of software or hardware problem (maybe the GPU.) Malware authors aren't interested in having their exploits detected by suspicious users. Perhaps the most tragic and lamentable insight from this whole thread is that a hard-headed realist like me (who has other things to do), now feels any need to seek elusive answers about the shadowy underbelly of our world - but that is a topic for some other forum.ĩ9.99% of malware is completely hidden from sight. Perhaps a deeper lesson is that the nature of society has shifted beyond our traditional means of coping. Perhaps this entire thread has been a lesson in futility. Frustrating.Īs you note, if my security concerns do indeed have any basis in fact (and I began this thread solely to help me find out if my system has been compromised - or not), if I do as several of you advised and rebuild my Mac from the bottom up, I now accept the sad truth that a committed hacker can get in no matter what I do, no matter what kind of heavy-duty door locks and network firewalls I may install. I cannot prove anything nor blame anyone with solid certainty, one way or another.
I would have dismissed all this as silly nonsense had not my main website been hacked and crashed about three months ago, had not my secondary website just this past weekend somehow been redirected from its home server. I would have ignored the little blips and odd flashes on my Mac had I not heard similar anomalies reported by the person whose own Mac was hacked, the same person who ran social networking for our campaign, whose several websites were crashed, even a retail business website. WZZZ, I want to say, "No, I am not worth the bother," especially since my role in the political campaign has not been pivotal, even if I have been visible and vocal. Do you think you're important enough for these nefarious actors to go to all this trouble? Anything is possible, but so far this has all been fairy magic. Given the politics you've described, I don't doubt that you may have been dealing with nefarious agents. In answering my request, you might help thousands of other Mac users. I want feedback and suggestions for the hard realities of life on the net at the beginning of 2014.
I searched the Apple support communities and found some older related posts, some going back to 2007 or 2009, which are not relevant today, such as the advice to use MacScan (no longer deemed a viable app), and the ongoing debate whether MacKeeper itself is malware. One option is upgrading to Mavericks, but I still havesome criticval apps that are not yet Mavericks compliant, so that delays the upgrade.Īnother option is wiping my disk, doing a clean reinstall of the OS, and re-installing apps one at a time (means I lose days of productivity as all get rebuilt).Īnother option is finding and installing better spyware detection and removal app (or apps) than I have installed so far. I am still seeing the little blips, if fewer than before, so I wonder if there is still some root level malware that has not yet been detected and removed. I have since installed highly recommended always-on security apps like Avast and Avira and Kasperski for live filtering (thinking that what one does not catch another will) along run-only-on-command apps like BitDefender and ClamX (each catches items the other misses). I uspect that spyware or some other malware somehow has been installed on my machine. Lately I keep get odd little blips on my Mac screen when I open apps and or use various browsers.