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How to remove a virus that's in a backup folder on a Mac?

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Using Bitdefender Antivrus, 1 have detected a Trojan horse malware, on one of my drives, but I can't delete it as I get a popup:-



"The Operation Cannot be completed because Backup items can't be modified."


So how can I drag them to the trash and bypass the intrusion by Sierra 10.12.6?

Thanks,

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief

Thanks, Jerome!

Sounds grim, I must say I am sorry for them. They are using Sophos and that I discovered has problems with Sierra. It does weird things with disallowing permissions. So I removed it.

Anyway, I am now removing Trojan horses, cats and dogs and letting the antivirus software work all night but would love to know how to actually remove the files that it has identified on this backup drive. I tried "option" with attempting to drag to the trash, and it stubbornly stays put and I get the apple dialog box telling me it can't be deleted!

I sent a message to the app help line and hopefully they might know!

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
it stubbornly stays put and I get the apple dialog box telling me it can't be deleted!
Asher

Then I think only a Terminal line can do it (acting as root user (super admin)), but I don't know the syntax, I guess a Google search on that should get answers…
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
The link I posted was to tell antivirus are usually not very useful on a Mac. Anyway, if you need to delete a file from your time machine backup, here is the answer:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25630?locale=en_US
You will need to know the exact path to the problematic data. If the data is in one of the system directories, selecting the path may be a bit tricky. Probably you will need to use the “go to” finder menu: Command+Shift+G, but I am not sure. I will be away from my Mac for a few days.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The link I posted was to tell antivirus are usually not very useful on a Mac. Anyway, if you need to delete a file from your time machine backup, here is the answer:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25630?locale=en_US
You will need to know the exact path to the problematic data. If the data is in one of the system directories, selecting the path may be a bit tricky. Probably you will need to use the “go to” finder menu: Command+Shift+G, but I am not sure. I will be away from my Mac for a few days.

Thanks Jerom for helping me and lookng this up.

Very specific black magic, indeed; even more complicated than koshering a calves liver for consumption!

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief


Thanks again, Jerome. I tried this solution but Apple time machine refuses to access that hard drive as it came from another computer the has since died.

So I have been searching the back up data base and managed to save unique image files and now am doing the vicious step of simply moving the entire folder in that La Cie Drive into the trash. After about 30 minutes of "preparing to delete" a dialog notice popped up asking if I want to also delete the locked files and I clicked approval with mischievous delight.

Now I have to wait.

Meanwhile, the compute chimes loudly every 10 minutes of so as another copy of "bitcoinfinder" is located and removed by "Bitdefender" antivirus software.

So far, nothing is removing mycoupoinize, not even Malwarebytes which I finally installed without apparent harm!

Have reached out to Bitdefender since I paid for that, LOL! see what they say.

One should be able to drag a know virus file into the drop zone on the antivirus dialog box or else into the trash! We should be able to find these common pop up malware nuisances, but so far, I am not winning!

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Well, the Trojan viruses are now gone and the rescued files were the original ones I have been searching for!

So brute force is needed in addition to antivirus programs!

I still have two malware apps I can't get rid of!!

Asher
 
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