Macs are no longer the machines with significantly fewer viruses. For the first time since the advent of Apple devices, the company has overtaken Windows in terms of the amount of detected malware.
The number of threats specific to Macs has risen sharply over the past year. Research conducted by Malwarebytes, since the beginning of 2018, concluded that there has been a four hundred percent increase per year. That’s about eleven threats per Mac, while Windows users are just under six per machine.
According to Malwarebytes, the latter results need to be put into context: Malwarebytes also saw significant growth in Apple users installing their company’s security software in recent years, making a nominal increase in detections only logical. For this reason, Malwarebytes calculated the average number of detections per machine and then compared to the average for Windows machines.
Macs not the only target
In the annual Malwarebytes report, another clear target emerges, apart from Mac users, namely businesses. In the past year, the number of global attacks on companies has increased by about thirteen percent. The most common tools used in such attacks are aggressive adware, Trojans, and hack tools. Malwarebytes also noted that 2019 was another record year for ransomware infections. Ransomware types such as Ryuk and Sodinokibi even increased by many hundreds of percents over the previous year.