Saw this today where an end-user clicked on a safe looking site for a background picture and got infected with “browser malware”, which completely hi-jacks the browser where you cannot do anything until “accepting” their “survey”. They were using Safari v4 on a Mac.
The message stated to go take a survey from “customersurveypanels.com” and locked the browser.
I found this very helpful discussion on the Apple forums, which had the resolution:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3247346?start=0&tstart=0
Steps to Solve:
1) Force Quit Safari
2) Disconnect from network / disable WiFi
3) Start Safari
4) “Accept” prompt that comes up (ok since you are not connected to internet)
5) Page will time-out, browser should be usable again
6) Click on Safari in the upper toolbar and Select Reset Safari.
7) Click at least (I’d recommend all checkmarks) Empty Cache and Remove All Cookies.
8) Click the Reset button.
9) Quit and re-launch the browser.
The above worked and resolved the issue in my situation. Hope it helps!
Maybe it’s a good time to go download FireFox and start using that browser 😉
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