Hi I have a Macbook, and just today when I opened Firefox it said that my computer was running slower than normal and it took me to a site (Macfee) that scanned for malware. It said my computer was at risk and said I should download a product of theirs or something along those lines. I wasn’t sure what was going on so I closed firefox, and when I opened it again it didn’t show that message. So I downloaded Avast Mac edition and scanned my computer. It didn’t find any viruses,but it did show a number of warnings. Most of them where error 13’s, but one was an error 42100 and the file was named bootroot.loader.dmg under the folder of mediakit. Should I do anything about this?
Any help is much appreciated
LOL, typical internet scam. Never ever trust those adds on the internet. How in the World one stupid add could know if your computer is running slow ? Nothing has been scanned, at least not with your permission. Even if it scans your computer without your consent, means something’s truly wrong with it.
Advice: Do not ever click on those internet adds.
I didn’t click on any ads. When I opened firefox a message came up with the firefox logo, and it went straight to the site.
That never happened here. Nothing like that especially if you are at Firefox start page.
Anyway, anything is possible, but sure that is not normal behaviour… I completely switched to Safari, so not sure what’s happening with Firefox lately.
Try carefully reading through this page:
http://hackednation.blogspot.com/
After reading everything, it may be that your computer got infected somehow. Since there is very little out there about this thing, I am not able to say more… but reading through everything may help to find the solution for this problem.
Welcome to the forums, Macnewbie. 
One of our members, .:Mac:. , may come in soon and might be able to shed some light on this for you. So, check back every now and then.
I think I found out about the bootloader is http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3711977�
This is the same file that avast found. So I think this solves one of my problems. But the only thing I can’t figure out now is why FireFox gave me that message.
Hi. You can ignore the error 13. It means avast does not have permission to access a file, which is normal.
Upload the bootroot file to one of the online virus scanners like this one
http://www.virustotal.com/en/indexf.html
and post the results.
In the future though, please post in the Mac section of the forum 
Kyle, results of Virus Total scan can be seen in here (same link Macnewbie posted up there)… search for Otacon’s reply at the bottom of the page:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3711977�
I also downloaded MAcScan from the apple website just to be safe, and after it scanned by computer it only found some tracking cookies. So where should I got from here should I take my computer to a mac store just to be safe? Or am I just a bit paranoid over the whole thing?
I just called Mac support and a mac store close to me. They both told me the same thing that the firefox might have done that because my connection was worse than usual (I’m currently on a LAN network at univ) They both said that if your computer seems to be running fine (which it is) and the virus scanners I downloaded (avast, clamxav, and macscan) don’t pick up anything then I should be ok. I also asked if I just reboot to the factory settings just in case and they both said they don’t think it’s necessary. I’m still a bit nervous about the whole thing though.
No need to be nervous.
Just wanted to thank everyone that helped with this problem. I have another question though. It might seems like a stupid question but I was curious.
Is it possible for Macs to pick up viruses for windows are give them to other computers? Or do they just not recognize the mac OS and don’t load on it.
Most don’t work on the Mac. Some can execute enough to just replicate (Word macro viruses.) There are a very few trojans that target Macs. The behavior you describe sounds most like a trojan. But if it is then the ClamXav should have picked it up if you scanned the right places. To be aggressive you’d scan the /Users and /Library folders. It will take a while and there will be some errors reading some files but if you have trojan it should detect it as a trojan.
An alternative would be to hold the shift key down from power-on all the way through the boot. It will take much longer to boot as it’s cleaning and dumping background stuff but keep holding the shift key down. Eventually it will say “Safe Boot” in red across the login window. Then you can let go of the shift key and click the restart button and return to normal.
Although most viruses don’t work on the Mac, it is possible to spread viruses to Windows users. (Forwarding infected Email attachments, or Office Documents with Macro Viruses for example)
How would I check for these viruses? Or would the programs that I have check for those as well.
Use them all - the more the merrier. I do know the ones I was speaking about are detected by ClamXav and though I’ve offered samples for Avast! they are not picked up yet.
I scanned the areas you suggested along with some others and it can’t find anything. I also did another scan with avast and a full system scan with Macscan, and they didn’t find anything as well. So I guess I’ll keep scanning every couple days or so just to be safe. I’ll post again if anything comes up later.
Again I would like to thank everyone that helped me out
Ok I did some searching and the thing that happened to me has happened to other people. The site that it took me to is Malware Alarm. Is this something I need to worry about?
Malware alarm is a rogue antispyware application. But because you’re using OS X you should not have to worry about it.