Malware for macOS increased by 1000% in 2020

In case anyone could still think that viruses, malware and so on were a Windows thing, they are very wrong. As Windows is the most widespread platform in the world, it is the main target of hackers. However, with the growth of macOS, this one too is becoming your goal.

Malware has become, by friends of others, a priority in recent years, with 2020 being the year in which it has increased the most. So much has it increased that outperformed all malware co-created for macOS between 2012 and 2019. On Windows it was even worse.

malware on macOS

According to the boys of Atlas VPN, malware in Windows has been 135 times higher that destined for the macOS ecosystem, even so, this increased by more than 1000%. Specifically, 674.273 new malware samples were found in 2020, compared to 56.556 detected in 2019. In 2018, the number of threats was 92.570.

From Atlas VPN they ensure that:

Contributing to this record increase in threats is the fact that new malicious software is now easier to engineer than ever. Today, hackers don't even need advanced programming skills as they can buy ready-made malware code, adapt it to their needs with a little coding, and establish a whole new threat.

2021 seems that for now it will not be left behind. A few weeks ago, researchers discovered the malware Silver sparrow, the first malware targeting both computers managed by an Intel processor like Apple's M1.

Regarding the Microsoft platform, the researchers discovered more than 91 million malware samples in 2020, practically the same amount as in 2019.

Is it time to install an antivirus on our Mac?

It depends. As a regular user of both Windows (as well as macOS), I have been several years without using any type of antivirus beyond the one that Microsoft includes natively baptized as Windows Defender.

Obviously, I know which pages I enter and what content I download, hence I do not need to install any additional protection measures to which Microsoft offers me.

If the number of threats continues to increase, it is likely that Apple will be forced to create a protection system, a kind of antivirus even if you don't want to call it that.


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