1-800-741-4144 virus

Hi guys, I have a friend that has a older Macbook with the Leopard operating system.  Somehow she wound up with the 1-800-741-4144 popup virus.  She isn't truly computer literate, and I'm not familiar with her operating system.  Her computer was pretty much unresponsive.  I was able to eventually talk her through a force quit which allowed her to shut down the computer and then restart it.  It seems to be functioning properly, but I suspect that I will need to remove any new addons in Safari.  I would appreciate any suggestions regarding cleaning this mess out of her computer.

 

Dan

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Edited by RolandJS, 28 May 2016 - 10:42 AM.

The information I'm interested is about the virus.

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Edited by RolandJS, 28 May 2016 - 10:42 AM.

After spending around an hour of searching I found the information I was in need of.  I found an article which explains how to remove this from a computer, and an article for deleting extensions in Safari.  If appears that a copy of Malwarebytes for Mac can remove the malware, and then removing the extension Managehomepage.us in Safari will remove the rest of it.    

Edited by dc3, 28 May 2016 - 01:58 PM.

Update

 

It looks like this adware can be stopped by doing a Force Quit and restart the computer.

[Found it, Task Manager]

Edited by RolandJS, 02 June 2016 - 10:39 AM.

RolandJS, you need to remember that those who are posting it a topic will see what you initially posted.

 

A Force Quit is an option in the Apple menu.  This is used to close a unresponsive application, in this case it was Safari.  The adware had locked it up.

While not directly related, I will note that there are situations where holding the Shift key down while opening Safari can help. I was recently hit with a JavaScript version of this same type of thing. Since I need JavaScript active for some websites, I don't have it turned off. I could quit Safari, but the same "you are infected" window would pop-up each time I restarted Safari. Both my anti-virus (VirusBarrier) and Malwarebytes did not find anything. So, I can to resort to holding the Shift key when starting up Safari. That basically dumbs the cache and all currently open pages (i.e. pages set to reopen on starting Safari again).

I had read something similar at a Mac website where they were dealing with the same adware.  They resolved this by pressing the shift key and doing a Force Quit.