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Mac has been attacked
Posted by: pipiens
Date: June 30, 2008 12:51PM
My wife's Mac seems to have been attacked.

Here is the scenario as best she remembers.

She was downloading to a key chain drive.
Mail was received via an airport connection.
She tried to read the mail but got a message saying that mail was available but needed a new account set up.
There were 4 emails in her in box so she tried another with the same result.
She noticed that the dock had asquired a lot of new icons-the icons you see by default on a new installation.
She rebooted
When she started Mail it the set up screen for new accounts came up.

Here is what I have found so far.
There is a new folder called ff in her home folder.
It is pretty much what used to be in her user's library folder.
except that there are some strange looking .net additional files in caches>com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.
Her users library just has a few of its original entries.

Any ideas on how to proceed? I would like to rescue her old mail if possible.
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Re: Mac has been attacked
Posted by: Paul F.
Date: June 30, 2008 01:23PM
Quote

There is a new folder called ff in her home folder.
It is pretty much what used to be in her user's library folder.

This right here makes me suspect that her user library folder got renamed "ff", and the system by default created a new user library, since it cannot exist without one.

Proceed carefully, make backups at ever step...
Make sure you have a good backup before proceeding.

But I suspect you can recover things by renaming that folder "Library" and renaming the newly created Library to "Old Library" or something.



Paul F.
-----
A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 5 BC - 65 AD
----
Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary for Excellence.
Persistence is necessary for Excellence. And Persistence is a Decision.

--

--

--
Eureka, CA
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Re: Mac has been attacked
Posted by: pipiens
Date: June 30, 2008 01:46PM
The backups are underway now.

The extra files in software update concern me. They are not normal . The show up as having a size of zero but they are not empty, buried in the folders are folders with huge names (hundreds of characters). The names begin with lalala
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Re: Mac has been attacked
Posted by: jdc
Date: June 30, 2008 01:47PM
yeah -- what paul says sounds about right -- my kid renamed my my wifes library "aiudhfauhfd" and it look like the mac reverted

renamed it to "library" rebooted and back to normal

give it a shot





Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.
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Re: Mac has been attacked
Posted by: Monster
Date: June 30, 2008 04:53PM
sounds like the wife doesn't have a password on the account, and/or the kids have attacked it.





The Taoist Zhuangzi said, "Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone".
The sociologist, and historian, Adam Ferguson described the phenomenon of spontaneous order in society as the "result of human action, but not the execution of any human design".
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Re: Mac has been attacked
Posted by: pipiens
Date: June 30, 2008 09:46PM
Thanks for the suggestions. It now works.

There are no kids and my wife is the only one who has touched the machine. I guess we know who the culprit was.
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Re: Mac has been attacked
Posted by: RgrF
Date: July 01, 2008 04:57AM
There are no culprits in these situations.

There may however be heros, it's all in how you play it.

























you could...




















...send her PaulF's PM address or
















you could do what I'd do...



















...let Paul look out for Paul and then take full credit for knowing where to go to fix the problem, "would you like another flagon of that Merlot honey?"



"Who's more foolish - the fool or the fool that follows him?" - Obi Wan Kenobi



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2008 05:01AM by RgrF.
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Re: Mac has been attacked
Posted by: MysteryGuest
Date: July 01, 2008 09:44PM
What RgrF said...

Geek credits expire quickly, don't stockpile 'em.
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