On Feb 20, 2020, at 9:35 AM, swarfmaster wrote:

I know better than to be smug about this...

When things work out that well for me I say:

"I meant to do that!" 8-)

I'm happy that things are now great for you, but it couldn't hurt to verify your setting in Mail.app. On this Web site you can enter your e-mail address and it will give you the correct settings for you for Mail.app.




___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

I was having trouble sending email from my desktop (IMAC 5K 27" LATE 2014) which was quite annoying.? Cox is my provider so I thought it could be an issue at their end.? I am using Thunderbird.?? I tried to look at all of the trouble shooting sites trying to diagnose the problem but to no avail. Then I got the black screen...? the backlight was functional but that was it.? No starting chime. I grabbed my iPad ant starting hunting for a solution. An Apple site asked me for the serial number for my machine but I could not find my purchase receipt so I looked to see if it was anywhere on the outside of the machine.? To do so I had to turn it around on my desk which meant unplugging it (see where I'm headed?).? Still no serial number. ? Oh well after lunch I came back and plugged it in thinking I would have to take it to our local Apple store for help.? Just for the hell of it I started it up and all of the problems were fixed including the email issue!? Previously I had gone through all of the suggested "fixes" for a black screen including the unplugging step but apparently I didn't leave it unplugged long enough?? I know better than to be smug about this...

Dufus

Bob Stern wrote:

Safari would not open the page with the address .
…

I am guessing this is spam but it looks legit.

Not with that URL it isn’t…

On Feb 19, 2020, at 4:02 PM, Jim Saklad via Groups.Io wrote:

Randy –

I’ve found, over the years, that if you offer an opinion, it is generally researched, well-formed, and sound.

How nice of you to say! Thank you!

I've spent many years as the head of a user group for attorneys. You can't say anything to attorneys without making a strong case and usually offering citations for what you are saying. (Even when you are just trying to help someone!) So I've gotten into the habit of doing that. I *do* want to be helpful and not just be someone who offers wild opinions with nothing to back them up.

Do you have one of those opinions about Sqwark’s DetectX, and what it is, or is not, good for?

The thing is, Apple and the traditional anti-virus software companies don't seem to consider adware and PUP's (potentially unwanted programs such as MacKeeper) to be Malware at all (unless they also do something malicious, beyond serving up ads), and they don't look for them and defend against them. (I'm not sure, but I suspect that Apple, and maybe the traditional anti-virus software developers too, are wary about the legal ramifications of setting their products to delete potentially unwanted programs where it might be possible for the developers of the PUP's to argue that they are legitimate and not truly malicious in a courtroom. It would be nasty to lose a lawsuit to a company that claims that you are going around deleting or blocking their legitimate commercial product.) So, Mawarebytes and DetectX are sort of invaluable products, since the Mac OS itself, and traditional anti-virus programs, don't protect you from adware.

Both Malwarebytes and DetectX claim to look for all Mac malware, not just adware. I find that impossible to believe, because either product does a scan of your entire drive that only lasts less than a minute. By contrast, a true anti-malware product can take an hour or more to scan your entire drive.

What seems more likely is that both products only look in a few pre-determined places on your drive quickly, and only look for a select number of pieces of malware, likely the ones that are easy to spot just by their file name. But they both do an excellent job of finding and removing adware. So that's what they are good for; when you find that you've been hit with adware, either product seems to be great at removing it. As of late, while malware is almost non-existant on the Macintosh, adware is fairly common, and it's easy to get infected with it if are uninformed. (Often it comes in the form of a pop-up offering you a download of something like a Flash upgrade.)

I've stopped recommending Malwarebytes; at least as a first choice for dealing with adware. MalwareBytes has become very intrusive recently. Even the free version of MalwareBytes now installs a lot of files all over your Mac, deep in the System. If you put "malwarebytes" into EasyFind, it's really varied for folks. Some find just a few files, some find as many as 23! I don't know what they are all doing, but as they are all very deep in the System, I don't trust the product, and, especially after the dishonest "report" that they just released that has some less knowledgeable Mac users all freaked out about malware now, I don't trust the company it comes from.

Instead I now recommend DetectX for dealing with adware, which isn't as intrusive, for dealing with adware:

DetectX/Swift


Since adware isn't truly malicious, and you almost always know when you have it, I don't recommend using the automated scanning features of either DetectX or Malwarebytes, which might slow down your Mac or create software conflicts. In fact, you probably don't even need to download either program until and unless you are hit by adware. If you are the paranoid type, you may even want to use EasyFind to delete either program after you've used it, just to be careful that the program isn't harvesting personal information of yours.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

Howdy.

You can send it to Apple's phishing service and Apple will check it.

reportphishing@....

Denver Dan



On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 20:03:53 -0800, Bob Stern via Groups.Io wrote:

I have been receiving emails promoting the Apple Card. This evening I
clicked on a link in the email to see more information. This while
using my iPad.

Safari would not open the page with the address l.ead.me.
It said This connection is not private.
This website may be impersonating apply.applecard.apple to steal your
personal or financial information. You should close this page.

The address bar changed to apply.applecard.apple but no .com

The reply to address in the email is applecard@...

out of curosity I opened the mail on my iPhone and xfinity blocked
opening that page.

I am guessing this is spam but it looks legit.

[|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|]

iSent from iDan's GyazMail on my MacPro

开云体育

I would consider it suspect and would not click any of the links. ?Here’s info from Apple regarding the card:

I have been receiving emails promoting the Apple Card. This evening I clicked on a link in the email to see more information. This while using my iPad.

Safari would not open the page with the address l.ead.me.

?It said This connection is not private.
This website may be impersonating apply.applecard.apple to steal your personal or financial information. You should close this page.

The address bar changed to apply.applecard.apple ?but no .com

The reply to address in the email is ??applecard@...

out of curosity I opened the mail on my iPhone and xfinity blocked opening that page.

I am guessing this is spam but it looks legit.

BTW, I have had other web sites blocked for same reason.

Randy B. Singer wrote:

EtreCheck Pro, in its brand new release, contains this note:

"Probably one of the most widely misunderstood topics is computer security.?First of all, remember that Apple provides multiple layers of ?antivirus and?malware protection in the macOS operating system itself. You don’t need any?3rd party antivirus protection. When you first turned on your Mac, it was?probably the most secure that it has ever been. Most suggestions posted on?the internet to install software or change system settings will make your?machine less secure. Many popular 3rd party security products are simply?scams and give you no protection of any kind.

"Most of the popular media headlines about security exploits do not concern?your Macintosh. Do not pay attention to news media or bloggers. Trust Apple.?Apple has a team of professional software engineers who specialize in?system security. If your machine needs an update for security, Apple will?provide it. "

Randy –

Daniel Settles wrote:

This is just not the case and has been debunked many times.?

There are hundreds of millions of Macs and over a billion iOS?
devices. ? There are more devices running macOS X and iOS than there?
are Windows devices.

Apple just does a better job at security.

“Security through obscurity” was bunk when they started claiming it 15-20?years ago.

EtreCheck Pro, in its brand new release, contains this note:


"Probably one of the most widely misunderstood topics is computer security. First of all, remember that Apple provides multiple layers of antivirus and malware protection in the macOS operating system itself. You don’t need any 3rd party antivirus protection. When you first turned on your Mac, it was probably the most secure that it has ever been. Most suggestions posted on the internet to install software or change system settings will make your machine less secure. Many popular 3rd party security products are simply scams and give you no protection of any kind.

"Most of the popular media headlines about security exploits do not concern your Macintosh. Do not pay attention to news media or bloggers. Trust Apple. Apple has a team of professional software engineers who specialize in system security. If your machine needs an update for security, Apple will provide it. "


___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

On Feb 19, 2020, at 6:11 AM, hoplist wrote:

I quote from the article you cite above. "Unfortunately even Macs have been affected by Ransomware attacks, although these are very rare, as you will see if you read on.”

And if you read the article, you will see that while criminals have tried to create ransomware for the Mac, they have either been unsuccessful, or they have been quickly shut down, and no ransomware for the Mac remains in the wild and the Mac gets hardened against each failed attempt so that an entirely new method of attack has to be devised if the criminals want to try again.

Attacks don’t get named until after they happen. The most dangerous attack is a zero-day attack—the attack that has never happened before.

Windows bigots have been saying that there will be a flood of malware for the Macintosh "real soon now" since the advent of OS X...19 long years ago. When something shows up in the wild that is really virulent and Apple doesn't immediately patch the Macintosh against it, it will be....the first such thing. We can all run around like chickens with our heads cut off *then*. Until then, there is nothing to be done to protect ourselves from that which does not exist (and which may never exist). Even anti-virus software requires that its developer have a sample of the malware that it is protecting against to be able to create a protective "definition".

I've been running anti-virus software for close to two decades (because my profession requires it), and in all that time it has not yet saved me even once from something that I needed saving from.

The software and knowledge is out there. It’s not even particularly hard to find. Ask a hacker.

I have a software engineer in the family. He says that it's really really hard to write malware for the Macintosh. And he's not the only one:

"Is Windows inherently more vulnerable to malware attacks than OS X?"
<>
or

I’m not trying to scare anyone.

Then I think that you need to re-read your posts and think about how they are being perceived.

I believe the risk is low and remains low.

Correct.

Macs are safer because no one bothers to target them. It’s not worth the effort. There are simply too few Macs compared to Windows.

That's utter BS that is long out of date. There are well over 100 MILLION Macintoshes in use:
<>

Viruses and Operating Systems
by David Pogue (originally published in the New York Times)

What concerns me is the pervasive myth that Macs are somehow inherently “safe.”

Well, judging by the virus definitions in the ClamAV database, there are between 5 MILLION and 6 MILLION pieces of malware for Windows. (Think about that for a second.)

Based on all believable sources, there have been between 50 and 100 pieces of malware for the Macintosh (more likely closer to the lower end estimate) created in the last two decades, almost all of which no longer exist in the wild, or the Mac has been patched against them.

The Macintosh has several layers of protection:

XProtect/File Quarantine/Gatekeeper/MRT/SIP


(OS_X)







So, yes, just empirically I'd say that they Macintosh was fairly "safe." For two decades now I've heard some folks say that "soon" there will be a flood of viruses for the Macintosh. For years now my bet has been that there won't be. (If there was going to be, I would have expected it years ago, when the Macintosh had less built-in security.) I should have bet money on it, I'd be rich.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

On Feb 19, 2020, at 7:59 AM, Otto Nikolaus via Groups.Io wrote:

Plus the fact that Mac users are seen as smug, which surely makes them even more of a target.

The bad guys who create malware these days aren't hobbyists. They are organized criminals. The create malware to make money. Creating malware for the macintosh is very difficult. It takes many months and huge amounts of money to create effective malware.

So they aren't creating malware because they want to get back at "smug" Mac users. They either see an opportunity to make money or they don't.

The thing is, Apple makes such an endeavor unprofitable by fairly quickly pushing out security updates to protect against new threats as they arise. The Mac OS includes several layers of anti-malware protection. In fact, the fact that Apple is so on top of this, combined with how hard and expensive it is to write malware for the Mac almost surely discourages malware-writing criminals from targeting the Macintosh. It is a waste of their time if Apple shuts their malware down before they can make much, if any, money off of their malware. They may not even recoup their original investment to create the malware in the first place.

In 2011 when the Trojan "Mac Defender" appeared, it is interesting to read about the lengths that Apple went to to protect us from it:

Mac Malware 'Explosion' Missing In Action


___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

Howdy.

This is just not the case and has been debunked many times.

There are hundreds of millions of Macs and over a billion iOS
devices. There are more devices running macOS X and iOS than there
are Windows devices.

Apple just does a better job at security.

Denver Dan



On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 09:11:28 -0500, hoplist wrote:

I’m not trying to scare anyone. I believe the risk is low and remains
low. Macs are safer because no one bothers to target them. It’s not
worth the effort. There are simply too few Macs compared to Windows.
And writing effective malware is, in fact, quite hard.

[|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|]

iSent from iDan's GyazMail on my MacPro

On Feb 18, 2020, at 10:43 AM, Randy B. Singer wrote:

There is NO ransomware in the wild for the Macintosh. NONE.

"Can Macs get ransomware and how to stop a ransomware attack"

I quote from the article you cite above. "Unfortunately even Macs have been affected by Ransomware attacks, although these are very rare, as you will see if you read on.”

Attacks don’t get named until after they happen. The most dangerous attack is a zero-day attack—the attack that has never happened before. The software and knowledge is out there. It’s not even particularly hard to find. Ask a hacker.

I’m not trying to scare anyone. I believe the risk is low and remains low. Macs are safer because no one bothers to target them. It’s not worth the effort. There are simply too few Macs compared to Windows. And writing effective malware is, in fact, quite hard.

What concerns me is the pervasive myth that Macs are somehow inherently “safe.” That is dangerous. Like keeping your door unlocked because you live in a “low-crime” area (which I must admit that I do). Macs are no harder to hack than any other system. The fact that they have been rarely targeted in the past is not protection against targeting in the future. Maryland rarely has earthquakes but the potential for a massive, city-shattering quake as big as anything California has ever seen sits below the state. Rare is not non-existent. Should I prepare? There is no easy answer to that question.

I also like keep in mind that OS of choice for the best and brightest computer minds is not Windows or Mac. It’s linux.

Cheers,
tod

P.S. If you want to be scared, read Edward Snowden’s book, "Permanent Record," or listen to the Audible series, "Dark Web” or frankly any good book about real-world hacking and global security.

Tony M wrote:

Check Now: NPAPI Plug-In Version 32.0.0.330 is installed
Install Now: PPAPI Plug-In is not installed.

So if I click on Check Now it shows that Flash Player is up to date. What is?the PPAPI Plug-In?

On 12 August 2009 a page on Google Code?introduced a new project called?Pepper, with the associated Pepper Plugin API (PPAPI);?PPAPI is a derivative of?NPAPI aimed to make plugins more portable and more secure.?This extension is?designed specifically to ease the implementation of out-of-process?plugin execution.

PPAPI was initially only supported by Google Chrome and?Chromium. Later, other?Chromium-based browsers such as?Opera?and?Vivaldi?added PPAPI plugin support.

In February 2012?Adobe Systems?announced that future Linux versions of Adobe?Flash Player would be provided only via PPAPI. The previous release, Flash Player?11.2, with NPAPI support, would receive security updates for five years.?In August?2016 Adobe announced that, contrary to their previous statement, it would again?support the NPAPI Flash Player on Linux and keep releasing new versions of it.

In January 2020, Google announced that support for PPAPI would be removed from?Google Chrome and Chromium in June 2021.

开云体育

I am running macOS Catalina Version 10.15.3 and when I go to System Preferences and tap on Flash Player to see if it needs an update, I am confused (maybe too easily I add). Here is what is shown in the open Updates tab:

Patsy Price wrote:

Using High Sierra 10.13.6 on 2017 iMac as long as I can get by with it. I still?use Flash Player for some favourite sites and apps, and will continue to do so?till they all replace Flash.

Some sites will present you a Flash site if your browser tells the site that it has?Flash available, and will present a fully-functional non-Flash site to browsers that do NOT?have Flash.

If these are not sites requiring a registered-user login, and if you were willing to?tell us the sites, we could test them for functionality without FLash.

For example, I removed the last traces of Adobe from my computer 2-3 years?ago, and do not feel I am missing anything on any websites I have gone to in?the interval.

Eventually I succeeded in force quitting the installer in Activity Monitor, but?that didn't solve things. I couldn't eject the disk image.

Re-boot.
The mounted disk image should be gone, although the .dmg file it mounted?from will still be present.

I tried to restart the computer, but it wouldn't let me do so till I quit the?installer, which I didn't succeed in doing.

You can always just use the On/Off button…

Finally I managed to shut down the computer with the button on the back,?and then restart it.

See? <grin>

After a frustrating experience trying to upgrade my Flash Player, I asked:

What's next with Flash Player upgrade installer? Suggestions? Explanations?

Randy replied:

Delete Flash with this uninstaller:
<>

Use EasyFind and do a search for anything with "Flash" in the name and uninstall it:

EasyFind (Free)


You may want to also do a search for "Adobe" and delete what you find if it does not relate to another Adobe product that you have.

Restart your Macintosh.

Download the full Flash installer from this Adobe site:
<>
Use it to install a fresh copy of Flash Player.

Thank you, Randy! Thank you for clear instructions, which I will follow tomorrow. I expect to sleep well tonight.

Patsy