The Russian App that Came to Stay #Kaspersky

As much as I love computers, sometimes they don’t love me back. When I bought my second MacBook Pro about six months ago, I received a six months’ trial Kaspersky antivirus subscription from the Geeks at Best Buy. Firstborn, my computer guru, warned me about Kaspersky because it was developed by the Russians. The Geeks said a Canadian company owned it. Well, it’s not as if it’s uranium.

So, the six months were up yesterday. Kaspersky warned me my Mac was unprotected. I didn’t click on the renew now button. I closed the window. Instantly, Kaspersky warned me it had detected a Trojan virus. It even roared like a Russian bear.

I couldn’t find Kaspersky’s uninstall command. I had to move the application to the trash. Instead of leaving my MacBook in a dignified manner, Kaspersky behaved like a jealous ex-boyfriend who parks his car across the street and watches you with your new beau. Kaspersky refused to leave.

I’ll bet our government had the same problem with it. So, I had to use a product removal tool that I had a heck of a time downloading. No doubt Kaspersky knew what was coming and did its best to prevent its eviction. Finally, I was able to download and activate the tool and it worked–or so I thought. Even then Kaspersky’s icon loaded when I booted up the Mac.

Once I was pretty sure I had banished Kaspersky, I installed Norton Internet Security, and suddenly my internet browsers ceased to function. They couldn’t open any web pages. It had to be Kaspersky’s doing. It was as if Kaspersky was saying, if I can’t have your Mac, no one can.

Norton alerted me that my Mac was at risk. I ran Norton’s fix now, scan, and update features. Norton failed to fix the sabotage. It admitted defeat.

I tried once more to rid the Mac of Kaspersky’s remnants. I deleted it from notifications. Voila! I launched Safari and by some miracle it worked! For how long, I have no idea. I’m taking my Mac to the Geeks to see what can be done.

Other irreparable damage had been done, however. Thanks to Kaspersky the cyber stalker, I missed out on the Cyber Monday deals. Talk about Russian intrusion, I wonder if I could persuade Mueller to investigate Kaspersky.