In this section we will look at the built-in protections in macOS to establish whether they are enough, or if you should also install antivirus software on your Mac. Macs are generally safer than PCs, but with threats to the Mac growing due to the platform’s increasing popularity, Apple has had to build in protections to macOS and the Mac hardware itself. Read on to find out more about how Apple’s security measures work–and why they may not be enough to keep your Mac secure. You’ll find Intego at the top of our roundup of the best antivirus for Mac, among other free and paid-for antivirus apps that might give you some peace of mind, including McAfee and Norton. If you want the very best protection from threats, therefore, consider adding a dedicated Mac security suite such as Intego Mac Internet Security. However, as good as these protections are, there have been occasions when malware has managed to infiltrate the Mac platform, and times when Apple hasn’t responded to a threat as quickly as Mac users might hope. These features and other protections built into macOS (which we will discuss in more detail below) mean it’s not an essential requirement to install antivirus software on your Mac. Gatekeeper and XProtect are two elements of Apple’s macOS security. Thanks to these features, before you can install an app, your Mac will check it against a list of malware, and even if there is no reason for concern it will not make it easy for you to open an application from a developer that hasn’t been approved. Additionally, Apple does a pretty good job of keeping on top of vulnerabilities and exploits if your Mac needs to be protected from these, a patch will quickly be pushed out over auto-update. They include Gatekeeper, which blocks software that hasn’t been digitally approved by Apple from running on your Mac without your agreement, and XProtect, which is Apple’s own antivirus built into macOS and inspects every app for malware.Īs you can see, Apple goes to great lengths to protect you from malware by making it almost impossible for you to download it in the first place, let alone install it. These built-in security features make attacking a Mac particularly challenging. Such products have their advantages and you may choose to install one for more peace of mind, but we don’t view them as essential for the Mac.įor one thing, there are measures put in place by Apple at the operating system level that should protect Mac users from the worst malware threats. Mac malware does pose a risk that users should be aware of, but it doesn’t follow that Macs absolutely must be equipped with antivirus software. iOS has established a dramatically higher bar for customer protection. When the judge asked about the fact that Mac users can purchase and download software from various places on the Mac, rather than being limited to the Mac App Store, Federighi said: “Yeah, it’s certainly how we’ve done it on the Mac and it’s regularly exploited on the Mac. He even admitted that members of his family had got malware on their Macs. “Today,” he said, “we have a level of malware on the Mac that we don’t find acceptable.” Federighi revealed that 130 different cases had been documented since May 2020, and that one of these had affected more than 300,000 Macs. Even Apple software boss Craig Federighi acknowledged in May 2021 that Mac malware was a problem… although it’s worth bearing in mind that at the time he was trying to make the case for iOS’s very different approach to security. One reason for the decline in 2020 was the pandemic as restrictions were lifted, malware saw a resurgence in 2021, with the number of Mac detections soaring by more than 200 percent to an astonishing 164 million.
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