Is AskMate LLC a legitimate Mac security fixing company?

As I was using my Safari to browse, I got a window which said something to the effect that my security had been breeched. For help, call (877)899-1824. They sent me a 6-digit code and were able to get into my whole computer. Name: Ask Mate LLC. They seemed to fix everything, but then, did they have a part in creating it? Who are they? Everyone sounded east Indian. They are located, supposedly, in Delaware. They wanted payment by check!
Are they ligit????

See A Browser Pop-up has Taken Over Safari. You might also consider installing ScamZapper, a Safari extension which prevents this specific kind of pop-up from displaying.
(Note that I am affiliated with that site, and some pages contain ads).

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Will there be a security fix for my Mac ?

Will there be a security fix for my iMac ?

http://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/details-about-apple-ssl-vulnerability-and-ios-70 6-patch/index.html
Recommendations
Update your Apple devices and systems as soon as possible to the latest available versions. Do not use untrusted networks (especially WiFi) while traveling, until you can update the devices from a trusted network. On unpatched mobile and laptop devices, set “Ask to Join Networks” setting to OFF, which will prevent them from showing prompts to connect to untrusted networks.

Hard drive crashed after mac security update

My hard drive crashed right after downloading and installing the mac security and safari updates last night? Other than doing a complete re-install from my installation dvd and back-up, is there another way to fix this problem?

Nope. You may have to replace the drive that crashed if you cannot reformat it.
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc. Insert the disc into the
         optical drive and restart the computer. After the chime press and hold down the
         "C" key. Release the key when you see a small spinning gear appear below the
         dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, set the format type to Mac
         OS Extended (Journaled) then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. When you finish Setup Assistant will complete the installation, after which
         you will be running a fresh install of OS X. Now you can begin the update process
         by opening Software Update and installing all recommended updates to make your
         installation current.

Mac security and maintenance advice needed.

can someone please advice me how to keep my mac secured and well maintained. i mean the macbook hardware as well as software.
any antispyware or antivirus i should get for mac? would u recommend one? and which one? also suggest me some free alternatives.
on pcs putting realtime scanners would slow down the system. i hope thats not the case in mac.
also, any maintenance software like a defragmenter? i have been told macs dont need a defrag program. recently a whole lot of permissions went bad when i did a 'verify permissions' check.
also, can someone tell me how often one should calibrate the battery?

Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.5.1 or higher are Intel Mac compatible; Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided. Versions 1.5.1 or later are Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts had been significantly reduced in Tiger and Leopard.
OS X automatically defrags files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline. Note that presently AppleJack is not compatible with Leopard.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware)
6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at www.versiontracker.com and www.macupdate.com.
Do You Need Anti-Virus Protection for Your Mac?
According to Rich Mogull's article, Should Mac Users Run Antivirus Software?,
"The reality is that today the Mac platform is relatively safe. There are hundreds of thousands of viruses and other malicious software programs floating around for Windows, but less than 200 are known to target the Mac, and many of those are aimed at versions of the Mac OS prior to Mac OS X (and thus have no effect on a modern Mac).
It's not that Mac OS X is inherently more secure against viruses than current versions of Windows (although it was clearly more secure than Windows prior to XP SP2); the numerous vulnerabilities reported and patched in recent years are just as exploitable as their Windows equivalents. But most security experts agree that malicious software these days is driven by financial incentives, and it's far more profitable to target the most dominant platform."
Mr. Mogull is a computer security expert. I recommend reading the entire article as it is quite informative.
For additional information on viruses, trojans, and spyware visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on viruses and spyware.
About Batteries in Modern Apple Laptops
Apple - Batteries - Notebooks
Extending the Life of Your Laptop Battery
Apple - Batteries
Determining Battery Cycle Count
Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
Battery University
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
would keeping the charger plugged in extend battery life?
It will neither hurt nor improve battery life. The life of the battery is determined by the number of full charge cycles - about 500 is the average life. If you use the computer mostly in a location with access to an AC outlet then you should use the AC adapter rather than run on the battery.

HT6146 i have an iPhone 5 running IOS 6.1.4. I don't want to update to IOS 7 because I don't like it. Can I download 6.1.6 to my phone or am I now forced to move to IOS & to get this security fix?

I have an iPhone 5 running IOS 6.1.4 and I don't want to update to IOS 7 because I don't like it. Can I download the security fix 6.1.6 or am I now going to have to go with 7.0.6 for this phone?

This was my question exactly. Thanks for getting to the answer even though it's not what I wanted to hear. When I tried calling Apple earlier today to get an answer, I was unceremoniously disconnected twice while on hold for several minutes.

Is there a workaround for connecting with https. the ssl/tls security fix is preventing us from connecting to a known trusted site

i made the mistake of updating Firefox yesterday and with the ssl security fix find that i can longer connect to a web site at a remote data center that is protected by a fortigate appliance.
i know the correct answer is to get the appliance upgraded or replaced but in the meantime i am in desperate need of a workaround. it would be nice if there was an archive of old Firefox versions.
i have changed the config settings to allow renegotiation but i think the problem is more fundamental than that in that it doesn't appear that older versions of ssl are provided anymore.

You're welcome
It is better to use a .cmd or .bat file to set that environment variable and subsequently start Firefox and not set that variable in the system settings as it will there also affect other Gecko (XUL Runner) based software.<br />
Then you can use a shortcut with that cmd file in case you really need it to access that site and run Firefox normally in other cases to be protected.
<pre><nowiki>set NSS_SSL_CBC_RANDOM_IV=0
start "" "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
</nowiki></pre>

State of Mac security?

So, I keep getting these emails from Comcast's Constant Guard service claiming "Constant Guard from XFINITY identified that one or more of your computers may be infected with a bot." They seem to be dead serious about it, though Comcast never provides any details about what triggered the email. They only provide a link for you download a free copy of...ew...Norton.
But, the security emails keep coming, about once every two weeks or so. Something is triggering Comcast's snoops to raise a flag my way. I think it's just occasional spikes in traffic due to suddenly having three computers online, but it's not something I can prove.
Has anyone else been the recipient of these Comcast emails? I also tend to be of the opinion that the Comcast emails are largely a marketing campaign, since they also direct you to their own for-fee security service.
So, what's the state of Mac security today? Are there really any bots that can make a home on a Mac these days?
FWIW, my home network is an iMac, two iBooks and, occasionally, an iPhone, connected via an Airport Extreme Base Station (WPA2).
Thanks,
Jim

Technically your Mac can become part of a botnet if you installed something unawares of what it was.
There has been a Mac botnet back in 2009.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/04/evidence-suggests-first-zombie-mac-bot net-is-active.ars
You can check with this site to see if your IP address has seen traffic associated with a botnet.
http://botnetchecker.com/
Could be those emails are phishing scams. Visit their site and see if there is any official word about these emails.
Comcasts DNS servers get hacked from time to time.
Use OpenDNS or Google DNS instead, only take second to reconfigure the router.
Norton is the last thing you want on your Mac, ClamXav would be the only good solution I would think.
Of course simply reinstalling OS X on top of the installed version and then Software Updating should clear out anything in OS X, but then third party programs and plug-ins should all be reinstalled.

How to get rid of "Apple Mac Security?"

Hi, a company called "Apple Mac Security" downloaded some program onto my PowerMac before I could stop it, and now they pop up warning that I'll crash if I don't use them to remove things that have supposedly infected my computer. I did a search for their program to remove it but nothing comes up. I'd appreciate some help, I know these people are crooks.
Thanks!

Thank you, Mad Macs,
I didn't install the "Apple Mac Security" program, so when I went to search for it in my applications file and the other recommended places, it wasn't there. I thought it was hidden because it seemed to install something before I could close out of Safari, and it popped up again when I was browsing. Very insidious. But I appreciate your response and help, and am happy to have found Apple Support Communities. I am a cartoonist, and am working on putting a daily strip online, do you have experience with Live Trace in Illustrator? I used to use Adobe Streamline to convert line art into Vector Images, and it was much more user friendly than Live Trace, but I may just not know how to use Live Trace correctly.

What versions of Flash Player Still Receive Security Fixes?

Greetings,
I'm seeking a page that lists the supported vs. unsupported versions of Flash Player. That is, what versions are still eligible to recieve security fixes (regardless of OS).
Thanks!
Edit update:
To be more clear and reword things: I'd like to find the annoucement pages for each unsupported version of Flash Player, that is, links to office Adobe content showing when certain versions entered an unsupported state.
Thanks again!

As far as I know, we don't have an official page that lists when a version stops receiving security fixes. I suspect we'll do a blog post when this occurs and I'll also update in our announcement forum which you can find here:
Is there a way to be automatically notified when a new Flash Runtime release is made?
The announcement forum also lets you know when security udpates are made, and where to find both the 11.x and 10.3 updates.

Malware " Mac Secure" attempted access to my Mac. I rebooted but now thunderbolt bridge in my preferences and I cannot clear it. Is this an attempt by malware to gain access?

I cannot remove thunderbolt bridge from preferences. Even after I rebooot it is still there . I have not clicked ok to co figure. I saw it after a malware attempt " Mac Security" . Is the the thunderbolt an attempt to access my system by malware?

Many thanks BobRz for prompt and brilliant suggestion!!!!!! It worked!!!!
Just a follow question, any idea on how to delete duplicate copies of files and music as I have tried to delete as many files as possible yet the start up disc remains full?
Thanks a lot!!!!

Re 8/17 security fix

Part of the 8/17 security fix deals with replacing \CFIDE\wizards\common\ _logintowizard.cfm which made me wonder what the purpose of that file is. If it isn't needed, then it would be easier and perhaps better to simply delete the file. I did some searching, but didn't find anything about the purpose of this file.
I wish the creators of security bulletins, hotfixes, patches, etc. etc. would at least address the underlying details like this. I deal with these things all the time, and almost never does whatever I am reading actually tell me *what* the things being fixed actually do!
Thanks in advance!
- Michael

I agree documentation on said things is sometime floundering. I think more often than not it's left up to a developer to explain a bug fix which can loose something in translation ;-)
I would suggest applying your idea to a testing or staging environment and/or having a devleopment resource review the file to see if any of the code may or may not be in use on an existing portion of your site.
At the very least, do apply the hotfix if you feel like it's any kind of potential issue. (still suggesting testing first).
Byron Mann
[email protected]
byronosity@gmail .com
Lead Software Architect
hosting.com | hostmysite.com
http://www.hostmysite.com/ ?utm_source=bb

Is there a programs that can scan my Mac and fix errors

I need a program that can scan my Mac and fix errors

It would be helpful to tell us exactly what errors you need to have fixed.
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
See if the above helps fix your "errors."

I'm trying to load avira free mac security, and am told i am not on patch level required, to update to latest patch level, what to do?

i'm trying to load avira free mac security and am told i am not on the patch level required, to update to latest patch level, what to do?

afickera wrote:
i'm trying to load avira free mac security ...
Please See Here > Antivirus Discussion
More Info Here > http://www.reedcorner.net/mmg/

What is Mac Security

What is Mac Security and why do I keep gettting a pop-up box with a message to update?

It's some junk program. just ignore the pop ups.

I installed Mac Security before I realized that it was a scam. Now I can't remove it because "it is open" and I can't close it.

I was taken in by the Mac Security trojan horse. I installed it, but I did not register it because it asked for money. Now I can't get it off my computer. When I want to put it in the trash, it says that the program is in use. Also, I am receiving **** sites because of this. What should I do?

Joseph's idea is correct but incomplete. After force quitting Macdefender in Activity Monitor (Applications - Utilities - Activity Monitor) then you need to:
Remove the program.
Go to the /Applications folder and move the program to the trash (it should likewise be called "MacDefender," "Mac Security," or "Mac Protector"). Also locate the installer file (likely in your Downloads directory, or wherever you have Safari store downloaded items) and move it to the trash as well. When you have done this, empty the trash.
Remove references to the program.
So far the program is launched at log-in by the system's "Login Items" feature. Go to the "Accounts" system preferences and choose your account name. Then go to the "Login Items" tab and remove any reference to the software from that list.
Thank CNET for Steps 1 & 2 above. I go them from Malware Removal.
Roger

Is AskMate LLC a legitimate Mac security fixing company?

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