![]() ![]() This flavor of the stratagem may aim to persuade the user into allowing a remote access session with the Mac, which entails privacy issues and dangerous code downloads in the long run. Some of these landing sites harbor tech support scams that instruct the visitor to reach a “technician” on the phone. In many cases, doing so will open a fraudulent web page that promotes scareware under the guise of a legitimate malware scanner. The crooks behind this scheme expect to get people on the hook this way, since interacting with these notifications is risky business. Someone is trying to steal $410 from your bank account” “Your iCloud is being hacked! Click here to remove the virus”.“System Mac OS is infected! Choose an action to restore the system”.“Gmail alert: Account has been hacked.“macOS: The system is in danger! Threat detected.“Detected: Trojan_BO8DF831059 – Mac scan required”.A few examples of these messages’ manipulative wording are as follows: They typically include some sort of scary information to pressure the user into taking action immediately without a second thought. If the crooks’ plan pans out, the “Ask You” pop-ups will be incessantly interrupting the victim’s computing routine. No matter the mechanism, the final outcome depends on the user’s vigilance in whether or not they engage with suspicious site elements. Another likely scenario relates to the activity of a browser redirect virus that’s already lurking inside the Mac and forwards the traffic to arbitrary domains as instructed by remote malware operators. The ad will open the dubious resource once clicked. In most cases, the path begins with a misleading advertisement placed on a popular publication by means of content management system (CMS) hacks or vulnerabilities in the target sites’ third-party components like plugins or themes. The variable thing is the way the user landed on the malicious site. This strategy is browser-neutral, which means it applies to Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox to the same extent. If the utility spots malicious code, you will need to buy a license to get rid of it. Download Now Learn how ComboCleaner works. ![]() This way, you may reduce the cleanup time from hours to minutes. Therefore, it is recommended to download Combo Cleaner and scan your system for these stubborn files. “Ask You” pop-up virus may re-infect your Mac multiple times unless you delete all of its fragments, including hidden ones. The truth is that these “Confirm that you’re not a robot” and malware-related garbage pop-ups are nothing but a curtain for dodgy permission dialogs, where clicking an ostensibly harmless thing gives that site the privileges to generate alerts via the Notification Center. Fake virus detection reports, allegedly coming from McAfee or other trustworthy security solutions, with a “magic” repair button are quite widespread, too. These web pages can as well push alternative narratives depending on visitors’ locale and other parameters. It all starts with a would-be victim visiting a sketchy site like or that triggers a fake human verification request supposedly required to view some kind of viral content, such as breaking news or a video that’s the talk of the town. Although most of those affected can’t remember slipping up that way, this aftermath isn’t a matter of a zero-click attack or a similar sophisticated tactic. The reason for these rogue alerts to inundate the right-hand part of the Mac’s screen is that a junk website somehow got the green light to display notifications. With such an attack underway, the victim gets annoyed by non-stop messages from a service called “Ask You” being spewed out of the Notification Center, as illustrated in the following image. That’s exactly what the recent “Ask You” Mac pop-up activity is about. The dominant vector of exploitation in this context boils down to duping the user into allowing a specific app to show notifications, and the common source of this abuse is a web browser. There’s no denying that this component is hugely useful, but with the caveat that it has been in the spotlight of scammers and malware distributors for years. With each new operating system build, this feature has undergone fine-tunings but the overarching idea remains the same: bridging the gap between the user and potentially important information generated by applications that run on the machine. The Notification Center has been an inalienable part of the Mac user experience since the release of OS X Mountain Lion back in 2012. Update: November 2023 What is the “Ask You” Mac pop-up? With some Mac users currently being overwhelmed with fake “Ask You” pop-ups that appear in the Notification Center, here is a sure-shot way to get rid of them.
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