A new security report from Malwarebytes will crush down all the preconceived notions that Windows PCs are more vulnerable to malware attacks than MacBooks.
According to the report, the average number of threats detected on a Mac has surpassed Windows 10. “Mac detections per endpoint increased from 4.8 in 2018 to a whopping 11.0 in 2019, a figure that is nearly double the same statistic for Windows”
Security experts cite the recent increase in the market share of MacOS as one of the reasons behind the insane rise in the threats to MacBooks.
In addition, the report mentions that Apple has not cracked down on “adware and PUPs to the same degree that they have malware,” attracting cybercriminals to get more aggressive on macOS instead of Windows PCs.
Owning this, experts note that the nature of threats in Mac differs from Windows. Mac’s top threats “were a mix of PUPs and adware.”“We found several different categories and families in our top detections of Windows threats that classify as traditional malware, especially those aimed at businesses”
Interestingly, two Mac threats — NewTab and PCVARK ranked second and third, respectively, in MalwareByte’s most prevalent detections of all platforms.
As per the report, Adware NewTab was responsible for 30 million attacks last year whereas PCVARK accounted for over 25 million attacks on macOS.
Coming to Windows, Adware.MindSpark was the most significant threat that rose 497 percent from 2018 to 2019. However, it only accounted for 2 million attacks. In contrast to Macs, Windows are better equipped to fight adware.
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