The threat of malware has increased for Mac users in a short space of time, a report from Malwarebytes claims, with detected threats up by more than 60% from the fourth quarter of 2018 to the first quarter of 2019, and adware becoming more prevalent with an increase of over 200% for the same period.
The Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques report, a quarterly release from Malwarebytes, advises the number of overall threats against consumers are on the decline, with fewer instances of malware-based cryptomining and ransomware significantly reducing over the last quarter, and with an overall decline in the volume of malware detections in general. While consumers are seeing fewer threats, there has been an increase in attacks against infrastructure and business users, with bigger targets offering potentially larger rewards.
Though the volume of Mac-specific malware grew 62% from Q4 2018 into Q1 2019, adware’s 201% growth was the biggest contributor to the overall increase in threats on macOS. The highest-ranked Mac malware was PCVARK, shifting the former top three of MacKeeper, MacBooster, and MplayerX down to second, third, and seventh place on the list, respectively. One adware family named NewTab jumped in usage, rising from 60th place to fourth overall.
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