removing viruses from my Mac
what's the best virus scanner for macBook early 2015 with OSX EI Captain 10.11.6
MacBook, OS X 10.11
This wasn’t a “virus” here, it was what is known as phishing. As mentioned, you would have had to interact with and download something. Which by your accounting does not seem to have happened here.
What did happen? Phishing: Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support
The scammers were targeting you. And your credentials. The scammers were not targeting your Mac. Fooling you was and is their goal. Loading malware is more work than is fooling users. We can all get tired or incautious or rushed or greedy or scared on occasion, and the spammers count on that. Strong emotions are something scammers specifically try to trigger here too, as that can cause brain fog.
Enable two-factor authentication on your Apple ID, and enable on your bank access if that’s offered.
Losing control of an Apple ID is a massive mess.
Use a password manager, too. Keychain or otherwise. Any competent password manager won’t auto-fill your credentials on a scammer’s website, too. If you think you’re on the “real” website and there’s no credentials auto-fill, something is wrong, and you might not be on the website you think…
Viruses are very rare these days. Self-installed adware is much more common. But as happened here… Phishing for credentials is far, far, far more common.
If your bank did not specifically mention phishing here, they’re being less than entirely helpful to their customers. I would expect that topic to be mentioned. Though their fraud detection does seem robust.
As for your security… You’re on a very old version of OS X, and you’ll want to upgrade if your Mac supports newer.
For macOS upgrades, see 🍎 > About This Mac, and post the Mac model and year, and with both the model and year we can then tell you your available upgrade options. If it’s that MacBook early 2015 mentioned, that’ll run the most current version of macOS, Monterey. And id so, you’re ~six years back. macOS system security has been updated substantially since OS X 10.11, too.
Have a backup before the upgrade.
Beyond the upgrade… If you’re at all concerned about security, robust and regular backups are a fundamental part of your security, and a fundamental part of recovering from an actual security breach.
To upgrade to macOS Catalina 10.15, macOS Big Sur 11, or the current macOS Monterey 12, use the Go64 tool to find and to ensure all your apps are 64-bit, replace or update or upgrade or retire any remaining 32-bit apps, and upgrade macOS.
Here are links to all newer macOS versions, including (indirectly) to the current Monterey: How to get old versions of macOS - Apple Support
