Am I safe online?
As mentioned before, the online line security is a very complicated issue, by experience most of the Apple users -if not all of them- thinks that they can’t be infected or attacked by a virus or even a Trojan.
On December’s article, it had the following sentence “Oh, can Mac machines be hacked or infected by viruses? The answer is YES” in fact, any machine with any operating system connected to a network is vulnerable for virus infections or hacking. An Apple machine is no exception, the whole trick her was on how many Mac machines were there and who was interested of hacking or attacking them, remember “it’s all about the money”, now a day we have more machines and more Mac users, so simply the interest of creating more Mac viruses has been increased in the last few years. In the next few points, will discuss shortly, what are the common infections and malicious programs can attack the Mac machines.
1- Adware:
As discussed before, Adware is unwanted program that can bombard users with advertising pop-ups, it can be both malicious or harmful. Some Adware can work with the help of spyware, a type of software that can spy on and record everything you do online, to push ads that is matching your online activities.
2- Trojan horses:
Trojan horses are common to macOS as well as Windows machines. The common Apple machines Trojan horse was found in February 2017. Dubbed “MacDownloader,” it was malicious software hiding in a fake Adobe Flash update.
The MacDownloader malware was a form of spyware that attempted to steal personal data, including the user’s keychain, which stores usernames, passwords, PINs, credit card numbers, and all the Mac machine login details.
3- Macro viruses on Macs:
It is really dangerous and effective, it ha been used in one of the biggest hacker’s attacks, disabling the Ukrainian power grid, by only one Microsoft Document attached in the daily mailing routine.
Microsoft Word macro viruses mainly affecting Windows, but eventually jumping over to the macOS.
It works when a user opens an infected file with macros enabled. The macro then tries to run a code that could perform functions such as taking screenshots, creating new files, corrupting data, moving text, sending files, formatting hard drives and even accessing webcams.
To be continued…
Today’s quickie: Again, and again! NEVER ever open a link in a mail even if you know the sender, except if you asked for the mail or you confirmed with the sender that she\
For any further questions related to the article above or IT maintenance services in general, please email me at: info@swifttech.com.au
Until next month, Go Swift!