Mac Os

Can Macs get viruses and malware? We ask an expert

The idea that you don’t have to worry about viruses or malware if you have a Mac is still surprisingly popular. Many people believe that Macs can’t get viruses, and Apple does little to dispel that notion, but is it really true? Can Macs get viruses?

“The answer is definitely, yes,” says Bogdan Botezatu, Bitdefender’s Senior E-Threat Analyst, “There have been incidents, and there will be more.”

A few years ago, Flashback malware exploited a security flaw in Java. It managed to infect 600,000 Macs, which was roughly 1 percent of the user base. There is a page about it on Apple’s website.

Updated by Jeffrey Van Camp on 5-04-2015: For clarification, we use the words ‘malware’ and ‘virus’ mostly interchangeably in this article because, to most people, these are one and the same. However, technically speaking, malware is the blanket term for all malicious software that could attack or infect a computer. Wikipedia’s page on malware is a good resource if you want to know all the many varied types.

There have been other problems since then. The KitM.A backdoor application on OS X was able to take screenshots of user’s desktops. More recently, the Rootpipe exploit has been proving difficult to fix.

“Mac OS X software has more high-risk vulnerabilities than all versions of Windows put together,” explains Bogdan, “Apple markets these products as virus-free. They say you don’t need an antivirus, because they know people hate antivirus software. These utilities often slow down your computer, so they don’t want to promote them.”