Surely you’ve heard someone somewhere say that Macs don’t get viruses; usually a new Mac owner that just switched from PC and is feeling pretty smug around his PC-toting colleagues.
“There have been more malware attacks on Macs this year than the last five years combined”
– Business Insider
While that’s never been the case, the fact remained that viruses and other malware such as adware, spyware and other junk software rarely seemed to target Apple products. The predominant reason for that has been market share. The bad people who produce malware figured that their time was best spent developing bad software for Windows-based PCs since they’ve historically boasted a 90% or higher market share, instead of spending their time developing malware for Macs only to hit less than 10% of the computers that found it. Simply put, Macs weren’t virus immune; they were just not targeted by bad people.
In recent years, Apple has gained more market share than it’s ever had, leading to more malware developers taking the time to target Mac computers.
The same principles for avioding Malware applies to Macs as it does to Windows-based PCs.
- Be careful where you browse on the web: Avoid untrustworthy websites.
- Question strange email attachements; even from people you know and trust.
- Don’t click on links on social media that link to websites that seem odd; even if your friends shared it.
- Have a quality anti-virus, anti-malware security software installed and updated.
- Have an automatic, versioned, off-site (cloud) backup in place to keep your data safe.
If you suspect you have a virus on your Mac:
Shut it down and contact us right away. We are experts at virus removal and malware removal in Billings, Montana. We can get your Mac or PC cleaned up and running in peak condition.
About Redline Computers
