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Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

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Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#41

Post by cmurf »

kuschku wrote: post #35
jmull wrote: post #34

> ...despite the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren't immune from invasive and dangerous malware. I keep hearing this, but I never see evidence of these people. Is there a widespread belief that there's a widespread belief that Macs are immune from malware, despite few people who actually think this? Well, I'm sure such people exist, but there don't seem to be many, even on sites like macrumors and…

Apple literally had that in their ads.

They still do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRM31VRNQw0

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#42

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jmull wrote: post #34

> ...despite the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren't immune from invasive and dangerous malware. I keep hearing this, but I never see evidence of these people. Is there a widespread belief that there's a widespread belief that Macs are immune from malware, despite few people who actually think this? Well, I'm sure such people exist, but there don't seem to be many, even on sites like macrumors and…

Anecdotally, most non-technical Mac users seem to have better habits than Windows users. Updates get installed and shady software gets loaded up less frequently.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#43

Post by jmull »

kuschku wrote: post #35
jmull wrote: post #34

> ...despite the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren't immune from invasive and dangerous malware. I keep hearing this, but I never see evidence of these people. Is there a widespread belief that there's a widespread belief that Macs are immune from malware, despite few people who actually think this? Well, I'm sure such people exist, but there don't seem to be many, even on sites like macrumors and…

Apple literally had that in their ads.

Yes, but a decade or more ago. The security landscape and perceptions around it have changed.

Also, back then the difference between MacOS and Windows was pretty stark so this was a valid marketing point. Not that the ads didn't oversell it, of course.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#45

Post by valine »

Semaphor wrote: post #32
epistasis wrote: post #14

>the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren't immune from invasive and dangerous malware. This is an area where it's really hard to extrapolate from my personal experience to the entire population, but is this really an accurate statement of many people's beliefs? I think what people actually think is that the chances are much lower of encountering malware in the wild on a Mac. In support of that, havi…

My experience with tech illiterate people is that they think they can't get viruses on Mac or iOS. Viruses are a Windows-only thing in their minds.

You can't get viruses on iOS unless you're jailbroken - Apple's walled garden pretty much guarantees that. Even jailbreaking is insanely difficult with the newest versions of iOS. There is no public jailbreak of the current version of iOS, or the version before that.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#46

Post by scrumper »

guessmyname wrote: post #12
shepard wrote: post #9

Does anyone know of a good way to check whether my Mac is infected with this (or any other) malware programs? I rarely, if ever, download unknown programs, and my OS is always up-to-date, but still... Would appreciate for any pointers.

Install MalwareBytes — https://www.malwarebytes.com/

Is this bad advice? Wondering why it's getting voted down. Malwarebytes discovered the issue after all; they're not disreputable.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#47

Post by Retric »

13of40 wrote: post #40
coldtea wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think what people actually think is that the chances are much lower of encountering malware in the wild on a Mac. Yes -- and what people believe is also true. It's indeed much lower, to the point of being a non-issue almost. (And it's not due to "lower market share" either. Mac OS 7/8 etc had even lower market share than today's Macs have, and it had tons of viruses).

> Mac OS 7/8 etc had even lower market share than today's Macs have, and it had tons of viruses That's not a valid comparison. When Mac OS 7/8 was mainstream, it was common to get software via a floppy disk that had already been in 10 other machines or from a fly-by-night BBS. Nowadays software distribution is far less peer-to-peer, and it's much more difficult for simple viruses to move from machine to machine. > ma…

Over the history of Malware I suspect the largest vector was simply machines connected to the internet. Going back to the OS 7/8 days is kind of irrelevant because worldwide computer adoption was so low. So, for the average person what they are going to remember is the unpatched exploits / zero day attacks simply because they affected vastly more people.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#48

Post by philfrasty »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #44

Given that most people here would be best off not-hacked, what are the best ways (software/security tricks) to avoid malware on OSX?

BlockBlock is genius for preventing installation of persistent components to the OS.

[1] https://objective-see.com/products/blockblock.html

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#49

Post by NelsonMinar »

epistasis wrote: post #14

>the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren't immune from invasive and dangerous malware. This is an area where it's really hard to extrapolate from my personal experience to the entire population, but is this really an accurate statement of many people's beliefs? I think what people actually think is that the chances are much lower of encountering malware in the wild on a Mac. In support of that, havi…

People think Macs are virus-free because Apple spent years telling them were. Example ad, with John Hodgman as the Windows guy with a virus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3Z386vXrt4

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#50

Post by 80211 »

taurath wrote: post #33
Semaphor wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with tech illiterate people is that they think they can't get viruses on Mac or iOS. Viruses are a Windows-only thing in their minds.

I would guess many 20-somethings have recommended a mac to their parents with this as one of the bullet points. At a time, it was more or less true - when dropping a virus on your windows PC was as easy as loading a malicious activex website, macs just didn't even have it. Not to say macs weren't vulnerable, but the attack surface was lower and the cost/benefit to people trying to bot-net your mom's Mac was higher th…

I'm a 50-something and my Mom with her Mac manages to get infected with browser-based malware. And she's pretty careful. But sometimes those "update" notifications look real to her.
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