How could McAffee sneak in and pop up saying it checked a site?

Goren

Obviously McAffee had contaminated my computer from a site I have visited. My question is how this can happen. Yesterday it proudly announced that it hade checked a site I had opened and I thought I had erased anything McAffeean. So I searched all programs and I found them hidden under a name that contained McAffee but started with some other letter so they were not under the letter M. I erased the program.

Is there any setting in F-Secure to block McAffee software from entering my computer?

From all that I hear about safety one should not have more than one security program active at a time. In my opinion their action is criminal. I am a poor witness though so I cannot give evidence from where I got the McAffee software.

I keep getting spam about upgrading McAffee software, but those email messages are easily identified as phishing and I have set my email program to automatically eliminate them.

PawełP

Hello @Goren

We welcome you to our forum.

@Ukko, an awesome comment that perfectly describes the approach to the issue of notifications supposedly coming from McAfee.

I would like to add some details on the issue of fake notifications from scammers who pose as McAfee.

This issue is described in detail on the official McAfee website and the information there can help you protect yourself.

As for notifications appearing in the browser, they are described in this article:

McAfee KB - Your browser displays fake McAfee notifications

While the issue of fake emails posing as McAfee is described here:

McAfee KB - You get fake emails from scammers posing as McAfee

We hope this will be helpful.

Best regards.

Pawel

Ukko

Hello,

There may be some possible situations here.

Firstly, quite often McAfee is pre-installed on purchased laptops or systems as some kind of promotion or cooperation between the manufacturer and this cyber security company. This could be a trial use, an extended trial opportunity, or even some kind of 'one year or more' free subscription. Thus, this software could get into your system relatively legally and safely.

Another side - many scammers may try to pose as "well-known" (or sometimes completely "random") AV products. For example, showing messages about the need to scan the system, threats found, or something similar. Typically, this is called something like FakeAV threats. And this can come from either randomly installed unwanted software or not very reliable browser extensions. Also possible while visiting websites. Acting as a “display” of advertising, pop-ups and other things that can be customized to look like a notification from an AV product.

However, since you mentioned that McAfee was in principle installed or was once used on the system, as well as the fact that it only showed itself in the pop-up that the visited website is safe - then it is quite possible that these are just “not completely” deleted remnants of some protection solutions made by McAfee; or even their partnerships with this particular website (who decided to show it to their visitors).

I am not sure that there any setting in F-Secure to block McAffee software from entering your computer (unless it is 'harmful' or 'malicious' ones), but you can to use Websites exclusions (Blocking websites manually | Total | Latest | F-Secure User Guides). This way, you can block 'unwanted' domains to be visited/used.

Regarding emails, perhaps if they are legitimate/valid emails from McAffee, you can try unsubscribing. Trusted senders usually have this option at the bottom of the email. However, if letters are phishy - better do not open them at all.

Also, you could try to use their Removal Tool (Article Detail (mcafee.com)) as a way to clean up system from their software.

Thanks! And sorry for my English!