A new global threat report paints a bad picture for Microsoft , as Windows continues to have the most malware infections, while macOS has the least malware. Elastic Security Labs released a cybersecurity report on Tuesday that looked at popular operating systems and the threats they received, and the company also includes forecasts and recommendations for enterprise customers.
As usual, macOS performed best on the list, even beating Linux, meaning it saw the least security threat. The figures show that 54% of malware infections are found on Windows, 39.4% are found on Linux, and macOS has only a 6.2% infection rate.
Trojan is the cause of most infections, accounting for 80.5%. Trojan horses are software that pretend to be benign, but there is malware hidden inside, which will be activated once the user runs the program.
Researchers found that MacKeeper is the biggest threat to Mac users as a vector of malware attacks. MacKeeper has a bad history, with pop-up ads involved, and some versions leave the Mac vulnerable to malware attacks.
MacKeeper program is often regarded as malware, or used to spread malware,
, the report mentioned that attackers can abuse MacKeeper because it has extensive permissions and access to macOS processes and files.
It also warns that macOS encryption software may become more common in malware on Apple platform. Password mining malware or "password hijacking" is a malicious program that uses computers to secretly "mine" a cryptocurrency without the user's consent. Mining will take up most or all of the computer's resources, such as GPU or CPU performance, making the system slower.
Apart from these specific threats, macOS is not mentioned too much in the report. This shows that Mac users don't feel much worried when it comes to malware infections.
Apple's head of software engineering Craig Federighi said in 2021 that the platform's malware level is unacceptable, at least worse than iOS. However, macOS has built-in protection measures for users, including antivirus software, verification of known developers' applications, and file system encryption capabilities.
