The myth about Macs not having viruses is a thing of the past now as cyber criminals keep making ways to hack into them. Just in 2020 alone, there were 674,273 new malware samples found according to an Atlas VPN investigation.
This is a 1,092% spike from 2019 where they only recorded 56,556 new malware. That’s an average of 1,847 new threats per day just to breach macOS systems.
Malware is the collective term for malicious software that includes viruses, spyware, and ransomware among others. They’re designed to be incognito in the system to gain access to information on your unit or on your network. The info they get is usually being sold to the black market of the internet or they will lock your system in exchange for exorbitant ransom money.
Despite this massive spike for macOS, it still pales in comparison to its Windows counterpart. In the same year, 91.05 million new malware was detected for PC or 249,452 new threats per day. It’s a relatively small increase from 89.07m detected in 2019 but still a huge amount nonetheless.
Atlas VPN states that cyber criminals keep making threats due to lucrative returns estimated at $1 trillion in 2020.
The sure way in securing your Mac or PC against these threats is to update them to the latest version as much as possible. These updates are always accompanied with recognition for new threats, thereby protecting your system from being infected and your data being stolen or held hostage.
