

It will also notify the user how much space can be recovered in just one click. The app thus attempts to persuade the victim that their machine has hundreds of performance issues, ranging from superfluous cache to unused languages that take up a great deal of disk space. It pops up out of the blue and triggers system scans that return really unsettling results over and over. Whereas Mac Cleanup Pro can arrive by means of different techniques, it behaves in the exact same fashion when on board any Mac.

Incidentally, another likely source of contamination is a site that renders a counterfeit alert saying “ Your Mac is infected with 3 viruses”.

To get rid of the viruses (which aren’t there for real), the user is instructed to download and run Mac Cleanup Pro, which is dubbed “Mac Cleaner” on the phony page. If you do not remove them, they may damage your system files and slow down your Internet browsing speed.” (macOS Catalina 10.15 update: “ helpermcp will damage your computer. Anyway, the site displays a warning that goes, “ Your Mac Might Be Infected!” and provides some pseudo details, namely: “ Your Mac might be infected by the latest viruses. A big giveaway, though, is that the “OS version” field says the victim uses OS Sierra, even if they visit the page from a Windows PC. The site includes a script that determines and displays the visitor’s country and IP address – this way, the users are more likely to fall for the deceptive tactic. One of these landing pages is parked at lp./adsph/2/ domain. The unprincipled developers of the scareware in question are known to engage a framework of misleading web pages to push their digital culprit.
