trouble with spyware alert pop-up

mazdax605

Registered
Hello everyone,

I am new here,and I have a problem. It started yesterday,and I am worried my computer has been hacked. For some background it is a 20" iMac running OSX 10.4. What is happening is when we start up Safari,mail,Firefox,etc we get a Network spyware alert box that pops up,and says the following for example when starting firefox:

Firefox is attempting to connect to a server with the internet address xx.xxx.xx.xx(removed numbers due to not being sure if these should be kept secret).Then it says (f1.www.vip.re1.yahoo.com) on port 80.

Fire fox is not authorized to make this connection.

Do you want to allow the connection,or block it?

Program location:/applications/firefox.app

It then has radio buttons with the following options:

O Apply until quits
O Apply today
O Apply once
O Apply always


On the right of those radio buttons are two boxes withthe following options:

Apply to all ports
Apply to all internet addresses


I am worried we may have been hacked,but I have no idea. I click on block when I get these pop-ups,and sometimes it will allow the program to work just fine,and sometimes not. Have we been hacked? What can I do to fix this? We do have a Allume netblockade program,but it has been on the computer for years,and only now has this problem come up. Any help would be appreciated. I have read about problems regarding the netblockade being out of date,but this seems like a different problem. I can attach a screen shot of this possibly,but you guys can help me with out it,right?


Help,

Chris
 
Someone has turned on the built-in firewall in OSX. The firewall is asking your permission to allow incoming or outgoing connections. In that particular message, Firefox needs access and OSX is asking you what you want to do. If you don't know what to do when the firewall asks you should possibly just turn the firewall off by going to system preferences/security. If you feel that will leave you vulnerable to an attack, then just leave the firewall on and choose your answers carefully because otherwise you might block access for legitimate connections.
 
The firewall has not been messed with by either me or my wife. How could it have been changed? I went into the system preferences>security,and nothing appears to be different than it was.
 
The firewall has not been messed with by either me or my wife. How could it have been changed? I went into the system preferences>security,and nothing appears to be different than it was.

If you say nothing is different from what it was, that means obviously you or someone else was in there enough to know what things look like. Obviously when you were in there before, you inadvertently or purposely changed something. The firewall doesn't activate itself. By default it is set to allow all incoming connections. That does NOT change unless someone changes it.
 
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