The Truth About Viruses for macOS

There is nothing that cannot be broken

As long as computers have some kind of contact with the outside world, and people create programs for them, there is a possibility that some harmful software will enter your computer. Some source code can be more secure than the other code, but there is nothing that cannot be hacked, at least in the world of consumer software.

Macs had viruses in the past

Before the OS X, there was a certain number of viruses that could infect Macs and do all sorts of unpleasant things with them. However, the macOS was completely rewritten during the transition to OS X that leads us to the fact that all these old viruses cannot infect modern Macs.

Your Mac is safe at this moment

At this particular point in time, there is no malware that could infect your Mac. No viruses, no Trojans, no text loggers, no botnets, nothing. You can surf the Internet, read emails, chat with instant messaging systems until you become blue, and nothing harmful will happen to your computer. However, there is a possibility that tomorrow morning someone will release a virus that will take advantage of an unknown vulnerability in OS X.

There are many malware concepts

Yes, some researchers managed to create pieces of code that could harm Apple devices, but these things have not yet reached the real life and open world. Additionally, many of them required some kind of mysterious movements in order to really do some harm to your computer.

macOS definitely has errors and vulnerabilities

Most malware works by using software errors in the operating system. And Mac has its own share of errors. Apple periodically releases updates to the operating system. However, to date, errors in macOS have not been a prolific enough to breed many malicious software developers.

Unix inside definitely helps

macOS uses many Unix elements, and there is a large amount of code written by Apple for all system services and the visual shell with which you are working all on top of Unix. This version of Unix has been used for a long time already and has become quite safe since many errors have long been found and corrected over all these years.

Intel does not change the picture

Someone may worry that switching to Intel processors can make Mac devices less secure because malicious software for Windows is designed to use Intel processors and is compatible with them. This is unlikely to happen since malware is usually written using vulnerabilities in the operating system, and not in the processor. However, this is a new approach, and it is possible that at the given moment someone may come up with this method.

Market share does not matter

It is often claimed that there are no viruses for Macs because they conclude only a small part of the market. To some extent, this may be true. If you are writing a rogue program - especially if it's part of the profit-making botnet or spamming network - or if you want to make a name for yourself, you will most likely target the largest share of computers. However, many developers of such programs also like fame, after all, what is more interesting: to write another virus for Windows or write the first super virus for Mac? Someone may want to give a good kick to the guy.

A lot of money involved in malware creation

Most harmful programs are currently used for several major purposes: capture information from your computer, create huge networks of tens of thousands of computers to generate Spam and participate in DDoS attacks on various websites, and finally, extort money with the help of ransomware. In any case, there are huge amounts of money circulating, and all these operations are not managed by amateurs. When there is an economic sense to target Apple users, they will definitely be on target.

Antivirus software for Mac devices

I'm a bit puzzled here. On the one hand, you spend your hard earned money to buy the program to protect yourself against something that does not really exist. However, on the other hand, you get two advantages:

a) with a suitable program you will avoid transferring viruses to Windows users

b) when a real virus for Mac finally appears, you will already have a ready infrastructure to repel an attack, provided that you update the virus definitions database regularly.