The prevalence of malicious software on the Mac is again on the decline: AV manufacturer Malwarebytes reported around 40 percent fewer malware threats among Mac customers in 2020, peaking in 2019. In particular, the “Detects” End-of-Customer MAC “made by the AV tool has dropped significantly, but corporate usage has increased by a good 30 percent unlike the MAC.

Hardly any classic malware

The proportion of classic malware such as data and cryptocurrency thieves and backdoorers is also increasing on the Mac, but it only makes up a small fraction of 1.5 percent. The remaining 98 percent are potentially unwanted software (“potentially unwanted programs” – PUP) with 76 percent and adware (22 percent). This type of malware was mainly recorded in the year Mac Malware 2019.

Mac adware is behaving more cleverly, write security researchers in your Malware State of 2021 ReportThere are variants that try to access the administrator password, browser extensions are installed using synthetic clicks and, in some cases, rights management of the operating system must be modified. At the same time, Malwarebytes again warned that Apple was also granting the now-infamous software special permission, so that it could not be removed from the Mac by other AV tools. Last year, Apple also sensed several times Apple was certified adware, so that users were not warned during installation – until Apple withdrew the certificate used by the provider.

The most unusual Mac malware was ThiefQuest in 2020, the AV creator deposited the funds. The malware was packaged as an installer of broken versions of popular Mac tools that were distributed as torrent files and initially looked like classic ransomware, but actually embedded themselves deeply into the operating system And tried to extract as much user data as possible and move it. Server. Malware designed in general existed in a very limited form on Macs rather than on targeted attacks.

(lbe)