Mac malware on the rise?

The bad guys are coming for your Apple devices - we find out why

- CHARLOTTE HENRY 

Macs don't get malware. That was the old adage.

However, over recent years, that has proven to be increasingly inaccurate, if it was ever true in the first place. There are now all manner of software nasties designed to attack Macs and other Apple devices.

Paul Ducklin, Principal Research Scientist at Sophos, told MacFormat that decades ago, Macs and other minority platforms didn't get viruses "probably because people who wrote them weren't that interested or there weren't that many people interested. But it kind of came to become almost like this touchstone, that it's obviously some magic smoke that got baked into my operating system of choice.

'I chose a Mac that's a minority system.

I haven't seen any viruses, my Windows and my DOS chums are getting them all the time. It's either I'm very clever, or there's something fantastic and immune about Macs.' And unfortunately, it doesn't quite work like that." Indeed, such a mindset can lead to a false sense of security among Mac users.

If we think our computers are somehow impenetrable, we might all end up forgetting to do the cybersecurity basics, leaving ourselves vulnerable.

It is not like there aren't issues to be aware of. For example, recently an information stealer branded MacStealer was discovered by the company Uptycs and other researchers. This is not something you want on your device.

"The stealer can extract documents, cookies from a victim's browser, and login information. It affects Catalina and subsequent macOS versions riding on Intel, M1 and M2 CPUs," explained Uptycs researchers Shilpesh Trivedi and Pratik Jeware. The malware was being pushed on anonymous messaging app Telegram.