In a world where I am a PC, and my significant other is a Mac, there are a lot of (dull) conversations in our house about how to use what feature, or which interface is superior. “I have touchscreen!” “Well, I have a Touch Bar!” are not common taunts, but they exist.
Outside of sheer personal preference or workplace software demands, a more frequent tease from Mac People is that they are simply immune to viruses. And this used to be true.
In their 2020 State of Malware Report, Malwarebytes stated that “Mac threats increased exponentially in comparison to those against Windows PCs.” In fact, threats to Macs increased by over 400% in 2019, when compared directly to 2018. This statistic may have been obtained by simply counting the uptick in MalwareBytes software downloads for Mac (or like-antivirus protections) … but this behavior is still a reactive one. You don’t pick up a tool unless you intend to use it. The takeaway is this: Macs are targets.
Why? The corporate world is changing. More workplaces allow BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), others have adopted part of (or all of) their devices to Apple-based products. As the prevalence of those machines in business environments increase, so does the threat landscape.
As a PC, it’s not heart-warming to watch Macs join the field of things prone to malware. But malware and crypto-ware are big business, and that’s only going to get worse.