These sneaky apps mostly tailgate into Macs alongside harmless software promoted through multi-component installation packages. Tap or click here for ways to outsmart scareware. A few notorious rogue programs from this cesspool are Advanced Mac Cleaner, Mac Auto Fixer and Mac Cleanup Pro. Scareware pretends to detect numerous performance and security problems to manipulate a Mac user into purchasing a license key. Tap or click here to find out how to stop your computer from being hijacked for crypto mining. Also known as Bird Miner, it was distributed via Trojan-infected copies of popular Virtual Studio Technology (VST) apps. OSX/LoudMiner, a notable example of a Mac threat from this category, broke out in June 2019. CryptominersĪ crypto miner’s goal is to gobble up a computer’s processing resources to mine cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Monero behind the user’s back. When inside a system, Shlayer redirects the victim’s default browser to fake search engines and quietly downloads second-stage malware payloads. It was detected on roughly 10% of all Macs. Two years ago, an adware strain called Shlayer took the world by storm due to its insanely effective propagation wave relying on booby-trapped Adobe Flash Player updates. These apps are nuisances that display redundant ads or hijack one’s browser and reroute it to junk services. And don't install Flash in the year of our lord 2020-especially not from a site that’s promising a pirated livestream.Adware is by far the most common threat haunting the Mac ecosystem. Don’t click suspicious links, especially not surprise pop-up windows. The best ways to protect yourself from Shlayer and other malware are similarly universal. “The techniques used to deceive users to install Shlayer also work fine with users of any other platform and OS,” Kaspersky’s Kuskov says. None of which means Mac owners are especially susceptible. As for the second, Long says, “the average consumer has no idea that Flash is rarely used by modern sites, that Flash installers are no longer necessary, or that Flash is being terminated this year.” To the first point, people have been so accustomed to serious Flash vulnerabilities that they’re conditioned to update ASAP to avoid calamity. “Force of habit, and lack of awareness of the current state of Flash.” “I think the reason why fake Flash Players are so successful, in spite of these facts, is twofold,” says Joshua Long, chief security analyst at Intego, which first discovered Shlayer nearly two years ago. While Flash might seem like an outdated lure, given the numerous public warnings about its fallibility and the fact that it’s dying off completely this year anyway, it’s actually perversely effective. Even the trojan’s payload turns out to be ho-hum: garden variety adware. In fact, it relies on some of the oldest tricks in the books: convincing people to click on a bad link, then pushing a fake Adobe Flash update. Not so! “From a technical viewpoint Shlayer is a rather ordinary piece of malware,” Kaspersky wrote in its analysis. You’d think that such prevalence could only be achieved by comparable sophistication. It’s led the pack since it first arrived in February 2018. At the top of the list: the Shlayer Trojan, which hit 10 percent of all of the Macs Kaspersky monitors, and accounted for nearly a third of detections overall. This week, antivirus company Kaspersky detailed the 10 most common threats its macOS users encountered in 2019. But it’s still surprising that the most prolific malware on macOS-by one count, affecting one in 10 devices-is so relatively crude. The popular misconception that Macs don’t get viruses has become a lot less popular in recent years, as Apple devices have weathered their fair share of bugs.
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