How To Remove MacDefender From Your Time Machine Backup

Update 5/28/11: MacMedics Offers Free Removal Of MacDefender Malware In Baltimore & Washington DC Offices. If you’ve picked up a copy of MacProtector, MacDefender, MacSecurity, or now MacGuard, just stop by either or Millersville or Lanham offices, and we’ll remove this malware off of your Macintosh computer for free. No appointments are needed, just stop by. See this link for more details.
Update 5/25/11: ALERT!: Turn OFF Safari’s “Open ‘safe’ files after downloading” option. A new MacDefender malware variant, MacGuard (Mac Guard) has appeared, and this version doesn’t require that you enter your Mac’s administrator password prior to Installation. It will install by it’s self, but it can’t do that if you have the “Open ‘safe” files after downloading” option turned off. The default for Safari is for that to be ON. See Intego’s website for more info: http://is.gd/Zq7BQd
Apple has posted a Knowledge Base article on how to remove this malware: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4650
How To Remove MacDefender From Your Time Machine Backup
Lots of folks have posted info on how to remove MacDefender from your computer, but I have not seen a mention of also removing it from Time Machine. It’s not that big of a deal, but better to ensure it’s gone for good.
If you are just learning about MacDefender and have found your way to this page, be sure to check out the Mac Security Blog for more details on this malware.
Also MacDefender also goes by the name MacProtector and MacSecurity. The screen shots shown here show the MacProtector variety of the Mac malware.
I’ll re-cap how to get it off your Mac and how to stop the application from running as there is no way to quit it normally.
1. Remove the MacDefender application from your applications folder:

2. Launch Activity Monitor (you can search for it in Spotlight if you don’t know where to find it). Quit the process for MacDefender:

3. Once you’ve done those two items, then enter Time Machine and remove all backups of the application from your Time Machine backup. You can do so by right clicking or control clicking on the MacDefender application while selecting “Delete all backups of…”:


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