With MacRansom again hitting the headlines as the first ransomware-as-a-service found to target Mac OS has been uncovered – it is time for many Mac users to accept their computer is not as secure as they might believe. It is true that it’s less likely for a Mac OS user to be attacked or infected by malware than a Windows user, but this has nothing to do with the level of vulnerability in the operating system.
Dan Sloshberg, cyber resilience expert at email security firm Mimecast, commented:
“The dangerous myth that Macs are safe from malware has been around for far too long. Most ransomware is spread via email attachments and we urge organisations to review their email security policies for Mac filetypes.
The MacRansom ransomware also features basic sandbox evasion techniques such as counting processor cores to try and avoid detection. Automatically converting all incoming attachments to safe formats can help reduce the risk of infection.”
