SystemNotes Malicious App - How to remove

SystemNotes (or SystemNotes 1.0) is a weird Mac application that takes over your browser and makes it open Yahoo. It can also cause the internet connection to drop sometimes – probably because it hijacks your web traffic. SystemNotes gets installed without your permission and can download more adware – and if you delete it, it just changes its name and returns.

Getting rid of SystemNotes requires you to remove all malware and delete SystemNotes’s files and settings off of your Mac.

Quickly about SystemNotes malware:

Type of threat	Trojan, adware.
Malware effects	Dropping internet connection, crashing Mail and browsers, strange and suspicious system pop-ups.
SystemNotes dangers	Stolen login credentials, credit card numbers, other personal info, annoying pop-up ads and redirects, downloaded additional malware.
Remove SystemNotes	Delete malware with a security program (Combo Cleaner, Malwarebytes), restore from a backup, or remove profiles, startup items, the app, and the extension.

Problems with SystemNotes

Effects of the malware

SystemNotes is pretty annoying:

• it sometimes breaks your internet connection,
• it causes some apps to crash,
• it threatens your online privacy – it can read your passwords, search history, and the contents of some of your webpages,
• ads may be injected into your webpages,
• weird system pop-ups ask you to confirm stuff or type in your admin password.

And if you try to delete SystemNotes, it just returns the next time you restart the Mac. Although, it does change its name. The icon (a green and white magnifying glass) and the behavior remains the same.

Check your Advanced Network settings, open the Proxies tab. There might be an unfamiliar proxy set, likely a weird SOCKS proxy. Changing the settings may not work – most likely, SystemNotes will restore the malicious settings the next time you start your Mac.

How SystemNotes was installed

The people behind SystemNotes use social engineering to trick people into downloading adware viruses. Usually, they use fake Flash Player update pop-ups. These can appear on pretty much any site: links in social media, ads on streaming sites, redirects by pirating sites, pop-ups on video conversion sites, and old source links in blog posts and videos. It’s not quite possible to avoid these malicious sites.

And these are not infected Flash Player updates – these are completely fake “updates”, just plain malware that uses Flash Player’s name. They have zero connection to the actual Flash Player.

SystemNotes could have used another fake software update – there exist plenty of scams, including fake browser updates, fake macOS updates, and other deceptive sites.

Once the malware is downloaded and you run it, SystemNotes manipulates windows and hijacks your mouse cursor to get your “permission” to install it. Then, it just starts up every time you open your web browser.

Remove SystemNotes

The easiest way to get rid of SystemNotes might be to go back in time and restore an earlier version of your Mac. But if you don’t have a backup, that’s fine – you can get rid of SystemNotes manually, you just need to be a bit careful.

First, it’s important to remove any obvious malware from your Mac. Use an anti-malware scanner, like Combo Cleaner, Malwarebytes, or another trusted program. If malicious files are found, delete them; don’t allow them to reinfect your device after you’ve cleaned it.

If SystemNotes is gone now and if your browser is behaving normally again, great. But if not, you need to manually remove the malware.

You should probably create a backup of your Mac now. This will help you recover in case anything goes wrong.

Next, enter safe mode by starting your Mac and holding the Shift button until you see the login screen. Safe mode is a limited mode of macOS that stops unnecessary apps, including malware, from running.

After this, you need to:

• delete SystemNotes’s startup items,
• remove malicious Profiles,
• get rid of the app and the extension.

Open System Preferences, Users & Groups, Login items and see if you can account for all of them. Remove unknown items. If you can’t find SystemNotes there, remember that it might have a different name.

Alternatively, open Finder, Go, Go to Folder, and paste in the names of these folders: ~/Library/LaunchAgents, ~/Library/Application Support, /Library/Application Support, /Library/LaunchDaemons. Look for files called “SystemNotes” or similar names, such as “BenefitSites”, “SearchPulse”, “CustomSuccess“, “TechLetterSearch“, “Any Search Manager”, etc. Delete them.

Open System Preferences and see if you have Profiles. If you do, check them and remove the ones that aren’t legitimate.

If you accidentally delete something important, some of your programs might not work right, which is where the backup would come in handy. But if you got rid of all the correct files, you will be able to delete SystemNotes permanently.

Go to your Applications and drag SystemNotes to trash. Open your browsers and look for SystemNotes in extensions, then remove it. Restore your search engine settings in your browsers like shown in the step-by-step guide below.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Restore browser settings

How to remove SystemNotes Malicious App from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall SystemNotes Malicious App and other suspicious extensions.
  
• If your homepage was changed, click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences and choose General tab. Enter preferable URL to the homepage field.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings(older versions) If you are still experiencing any issues related to SystemNotes, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Reset Safari…
  
• Select which options you want to reset (usually all of them come preselected) and click on the Reset button.
  

If you cannot reset your browser settings and the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program.

TopHow to remove SystemNotes Malicious App from Google Chrome on Mac:

• Open Chrome browser.
• Enter in the url field “chrome://extensions” address and hit Enter.
• Find SystemNotes Malicious App on the extensions list and click on the recycle bin icon next to it.
• Click on 'Chrome' button at the top left corner. Select 'Preferences' on a drop-down menu box.
• Find 'Search' options on Settings tab. If your search engine is changed, click 'Manage Search Engines' and set your preferred search engine.
• On the same page find 'Show home button' checkbox and change your homepage.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to SystemNotes, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• On the 'Preferences' menu window, scroll down to the bottom and find 'Reset settings' button. Click it.
• Confirm your selection and click 'Reset' on the following window.

If you cannot reset your browser settings and the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program. Top

How To remove SystemNotes Malicious App from Firefox on Mac OS:

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Mozilla window and select the “Add-ons” icon (Or press cmd+Shift+A on your keyboard).
• Go through Extensions list, remove everything SystemNotes Malicious App related and items you do not recognise. If you do not know the extension and it is not made by Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, Oracle or Adobe then you probably do not need it.
• Enter “about:preferences” in URL bar and hit enter.
• Open Search settings tab.
• If your search engine is changed, click 'Default Search Engines' and set your preferred search engine.
• If your homepage was changed, click on the Firefox menu in the top right corner, select Preferences-> General. Enter a preferable URL to the home page field.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to SystemNotes Malicious App, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Mozilla Firefox window. Click on the Help button.
• Choose Troubleshooting Information on the Help menu.
• Click on the Refresh Firefox button.
• Click on the Refresh Firefox button on the confirmation box. Mozilla Firefox will close and change the settings to default.

If the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program to identify malicious entries.