Muy anecdote: could not work because mac was randomly popping up "please sign in to your apple id to use podcasts" popup, stealing focus and obscuring screen fe

Muy anecdote: could not work because mac was randomly popping up "please sign in to your apple id to use podcasts" popup, stealing focus and obscuring screen few times a minute. entering password resulted in "incorrect password" and a repeat popup. Got real strong malware vibes, did upgrade+reboot, it passed. I wonder if its also related to this