Mac malware – the threat is real

Mac malware has been making the headlines in the last year or two, as regular users have been hit by in-the-wild threats.

It’s somewhat gratifying to find that more and more Mac users have woken up to the risks and are installing anti-virus software on their computers.

Probably the biggest single incident was the Flashback botnet, which infected over 600,000 Macs earlier this year, exploiting a Java vulnerability that Apple had left unpatched. (Apple eventually patched the vulnerability, some months after Windows users first had a fix made available to them).

Back then, things were pretty bad on the Mac malware front. Our free anti-virus product found malware on 2.7% (one in 36) of Macs, as well as a plethora of (less dangerous) Windows-based malware…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.