Mac OS X Malware Soars in 2015

[sinu]

Content source

http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/mac-os-x-malware-soars-in-2015/

Mac malware is set to accelerate over the coming months after having its most prolific year ever so far in 2015, according to new research from endpoint security firm Bit9 + Carbon Black.
After an analysis of the year so far, the vendor concluded that five times more Mac malware appeared in 2015 than the previous five years combined.
It collected 1,400 unique samples over the period using custom built sandboxes and tools such as such as fs_usage, dtrace, and opensnoop.
It found that Mac malware as a whole does not borrow very heavily from Unix or Linux malware, which was unexpected given OS X’s roots in the open source FreeBSD.

Another interesting find was that more than 90% of the Mac malware it discovered still uses the old load command (LC_THREAD and LC_UNIXTHREAD) to define the entry point into the Mach-O format.
In addition, the Bit9 + Carbon Black researchers concluded that the vast majority of Mac malware uses one of just seven persistence techniques to remain on an infected system.
These include LaunchAgents; LaunchDaemons; Login items; Browser plugins; StartupItems; Binary infection; and Cron job.

Read more : Mac OS X Malware Soars in 2015

 

[Chromatinfish 123]

Explains why you should not relax completely when you are on a mac. Make smart choices, and you still need some kind of browsing protection or maybe AV on Mac too. Mac malware is still small compared to windows but the percentage is still pretty darn high!

 

[jamescv7]

Actually they are more dangerous than those Windows malware since the vulnerabilities on Mac OS X/Linux provide future risks in huge numbers whereas Windows regularly patches.

Overall nothing is safe nowadays.