Apple’s operating system recently came under fire from vulnerabilities – both trivial and not – and malware designed to specifically compromise user data and privacy. While macOS users are under the false belief that malware is scarce for Apple’s OS, recent news about the FruitFly malware that’s been around for 13 years has raised new security questions about the likelihood of your Mac getting infected.
One of the most common ways to trick users into installing malware is by rigging popular applications with malicious code. While the Transmission app that delivered ransomware was one of the most noteworthy incidents of 2016 – it was the first time ransomware ever targeted Macs – the Proton app replicated the same attack vector. With more than 1 million downloads, the legitimate Proton app was weaponized with malicious code – in this case, a Remote Access Trojan – to steal data from unsuspecting victims.
