Panda Security said it best about the myth that only computers running Windows are vulnerable by stating, “Apple computers have developed a reputation for exceptional security. In fact, many people believe that Macs are completely invulnerable to malware, like viruses and ransomware.” As their article goes on to explain users cannot speak of anything being absolutely secure all the time. This leads Panda to bring up an interesting point that, “the first viruses ever created was targeted at the Apple II computer back in 1982. The virus was relatively harmless – it simply displayed a rather childish poem on screen. But the reality was that the computer’s built-in security had been breached. ” It is also important to note that there were over 18 million Mac computers in 2018 as opposed to the 3 million in 2002. Meaning, there are more opportunities for malicious entities to spend time on developing attacks for non-Windows users.
macOS had a vulnerability announced in May in which applications can bypass macOS’s Gatekeeper the application that checks to see if the code is signed by Apple and if not to ask the user for their permission to run it. The newest release of macOS (10.14.5) is still exploitable.
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