Website Securitypatch.life keeps opening a new tab in Safari and I can't figure out why

After contacting the news site where I got those pop-ups and getting some ideas there, I found an article in Apple

Support at this link.

Block pop-up ads and windows in Safari - Apple Support

I followed the suggestions for my MacBook, then I just spent about an hour on the news site in question, during which I didn't get any pop-ups. In that same length of time on each of two days before this, I got 2 or 3, or even 5 pop-ups. So I assume the adjustment I made worked, though it's possible that the offending ad changed or got removed.

There's a section in the same article about making this change on the iPhone as well, which you might consider following.

The news site is reuters.com. The fix that worked for me was as the support article describes, which is Safari: Settings: Websites: Pop-up windows: set reuters.com to "block." I already had "When visiting other websites" set to "block and notify," so that's what Reuters came up with by default, and I was still getting the pop-up. It was only after setting Reuters to "block" that they stopped. But again, I'm not sure my setting this is why they stopped. And I haven't tried any of this on my iPhone, as I don't use it to view Reuters or very many other websites. I do that kind of thing on my laptop.

I don't think it has anything to do with McAfee. That's just what the scammers want you to think so that you'll click on something on that site to get further in with them. On my MacBook, after it tells me I have a bunch of viruses infecting my computer, which I don't believe I do, it says "Proceed," which of course I don't do.

I think it's operating as, or is disguised as, an ad on a news site I use a lot, and that site lets it in as an ad, along with a lot of other ads, probably without knowing it. Most of the ads there are on the side or at the top of their page. This is the only one that opens a new page, and that's why I can just click my "back" button on Safari to go back to the news site. But it seems that Safari doesn't know that it could be more than just an annoying ad.

This news site is the only site where this happens to me so far. That's why I think it's acting like an ad and getting through there.

What are you doing on your phone when this pops up? Does it seem to be associated with a particular site or activity for you? Does it ever happen on your MacBook?

I'm surprised that you're the only person in the community who seems to have experienced something similar, as I was hoping a bunch of people would have tried different things. I will continue to experiment to see if the same thing happens from other sites, and I'll then report to Apple what I've found.

It's pretty obvious that this is a scam, and for me, it's been easy to get rid of by going "back" in my browser, but the question is how to keep it from popping up. The illustration here looks like it's from an iPhone, but I get a slightly different version that says the same thing on my MacBook Pro.