OFFICIAL SECURITY BLOG

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Apple cracks down on adware

Posted on February 13th, 2015 at 7:25 AM EST

Apple has used the XProtect anti-malware protection in Mac OS X to block a few pieces of adware in the past. Yesterday, they cracked down on adware again, adding a slew of new items to XProtect’s signatures, used for identifying and blocking malicious apps. Three are updated signatures, while one is for adware never before blocked by XProtect.
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Downlite adware blocked by Apple

Posted on November 21st, 2014 at 7:24 AM EST

Macs infected with the Downlite adware have been prevented from accessing my AdwareMedic site and portions of The Safe Mac for several weeks now. (See Adware blocking AdwareMedic downloads!.) This appears to have been done in an attempt to prevent people from removing this adware from their Macs. Fortunately, this also may have led to Downlite’s demise: it is now identified as malware by Apple!
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Update on Downlite blockage

Posted on October 30th, 2014 at 9:08 AM EDT

The Downlite adware is now blocking links to my previous article on Downlite. If you are infected with Downlite and are having trouble viewing that article, and thus the solutions at the end of the article, see the following document posted on Apple’s site:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7792

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Adware blocking AdwareMedic downloads!

Posted on October 28th, 2014 at 6:24 AM EDT

Last week, I began to receive a series of reports from people that the Download button on the AdwareMedic site wasn’t working. First it was just a trickle, then a flood. For some people, the button was redirecting to the MacKeeper website. For others, it was going to a “not found” error page. I knew that the site itself wasn’t doing that, since I wrote every single piece of code on the AdwareMedic site… so what was going on?
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