Do you really need anti-malware on your Mac?
Mac users have long presumed that they were immune from computer viruses and malware, but there are a few reasons to reconsider that view these days.
A few years ago, Macs were a small minority of computers, and so generally considered to be an unrewarding target for hackers and other cybercriminals. But Macs are a lot more popular now, and while it’s great to see more Macs around, it also means they are now more a more attractive target.
And while Macs are arguably more secure, it has never been true that there weren’t any Mac viruses or malware. As far back as the 1980s there were Mac viruses propagated in those pre-internet days by rampant floppy disk swapping. These weren’t very destructive viruses, but could make systems unstable, and it wasn’t very good for your reputation to be passing them around.
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/mac/2019/12/mac-threat-detections-on-the-rise-in-2019/
Apple has your back, but don’t rely on that alone
Apple themselves put a lot of development work into keeping the Mac secure. In recent years you will have noticed more and more warning dialogs about allowing different applications to access parts of your system. Restrictions have been tightened around installing software. And Safari imposes aggressive blocking of websites it considers suspicious. Those measures are all great, but a problem is that busy people tend to just “okay” past these warnings, so they can keep doing whatever it is they’re doing. So while they’re great to have, these systems aren’t infallible.
Consider others who you might infect with computer nasties
Another thing to think about regarding viruses, malware and adware, is being a good computing citizen. No one wants to be responsible for propagating nasties to clients or friends – so even if viruses or malware might not affect your system, you might find yourself responsible for passing them to others. This has been an issue in the past with the Microsoft macro viruses that were prevalent – they didn’t affect Macs, but Macs could pass those files on to PC users, who they might have affected.
Your home office probably isn’t as secure as your work office
Adding to the vulnerability of your Mac is the fact that so many of us are working remotely these days. Your office probably has sophisticated firewalls and other filtering mechanisms in place, that keep that environment relatively secure. But your home network very likely does not. So you might be more vulnerable these days than you realise. Cybercriminals very quickly realised that remote workers were an attractive target for this reason.
So there is good reason to stop and consider whether you should be tightening up your security. Of course anti virus or anti malware is yet another software gadget to install and look after. So the best solution would be something that you install once and don’t need to think about again.
Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection
Mac Aid recommend Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection, a small application that is installed on your system, that is remotely monitored by Mac Aid. It runs scans in the background, and reports on the health of your system. We monitor our Malwarebytes endpoints daily, so if anything suspicious is noted, we’ll get in contact to discuss how you might deal with it.
So if you decide that it’s time you took some precautions to protect your devices, and your family, friends and clients from malware and viruses, talk to Mac Aid, we’ll can very quickly set you up and remotely deploy Malwarebytes.
