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Getting rid of potential Safari notification virus on MacBook Air

I accidentally visited a sketchy website through Safari and now my Mac continually gives me notifications that seems to indicate they are from my System Preferences app, but clicking on them takes me BACK to the website. It's telling me I need to download McAfee because my computer is at risk— I’ve never had McAfee, and it’s not the McAfee website, so obviously a scam, right? I also got a notif that it was trying to download files from my computer, but that was only once. Anyway, so scam/virus identified as a scam/virus, but when i run my actual antivirus full scans (Norton 360), it says there is no security risk or problems detected. And yet, I keep getting these notifications directly to my software. I’ve tried rebooting the computer in Safe Mode, I’ve tried clearing my Safari history, I’ve tried putting on my actual VPN, etc. Nothing works. Does anyone know how to solve this problem and actually find and locate the malware and remove it?

MacBook Air 13″

Posted on Sep 14, 2023 8:16 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 14, 2023 8:45 AM

It's not a virus. Do not download MacAfee. See the instructions here to stop the notifications:


Stop unwanted Notifications - Apple Community


Also, get rid of Norton. It will do far more harm than good. And it's completely unnecessary:


Effective defenses against malware and ot… - Apple Community


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Getting rid of potential Safari notification virus on MacBook Air

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