This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Mac users are finally retiring an old myth

Pop-up ads, slowdowns, crashes — that's what most people picture when they hear "Mac virus." It hasn't been the real risk for years.

The threats that matter now are built not to be noticed: malware that copies saved passwords and wallet files in the background, and scams that talk a user into running the command themselves.

Neither leaves the kind of trace Apple's built-in tools were designed to find, so a Mac can be compromised and still feel completely normal.

Moonlock Lab's 2025 macOS Threat Report, published in December 2025, found the era of the malware-free Mac is over: new backdoor variants are up 67% in a year, and criminals are starting to treat macOS the same way they treat Windows.

The same report found 66% of Mac users encountered at least one cyberthreat in the past year.

The same team builds Moonlock , MacPaw's Mac security app, made to catch threats that don't announce themselves and don't look like malware.

It pairs a malware scanner with always-on protection and a scam checker for anything that looks off.

Opens in a new window Credit: Moonlock Moonlock The comprehensive security solution you need to protect your Mac Learn More The annoying stuff isn't the expensive stuff In Moonlock's mid-2026 macOS Threat Report , released in July 2026, adware accounts for roughly 65% of the company's own detections, with unwanted apps at 25%, so most of what ends up on users' Macs is considered low-severity.

However, even though stealers, backdoors, and trojans make up the rest, users should still run an ad blocker.

The mid-2026 report also cites VirusTotal submission data showing unique malicious macOS samples rose roughly 40% year over year, with infostealers becoming a more dominant presence.

While there may be a high volume of annoying adware out there, it’s the smaller cut of the pie that’s more dangerous and worth paying attention to.

Apple's protection is real, and it has a scope Apple’s default defense apps, like Gatekeeper and XProtect, are good at flagging known patterns (malicious downloads, an unsigned app), but they’re not designed to handle threats that don’t look like malware.

Take ClickFix, a tactic in which a Mac user sees a fake CAPTCHA or a "fix your audio glitch" prompt and is encouraged to paste a command into Terminal with no file to scan, nothing unsigned to flag.

Apple responded to this type of threat by adding a warning dialog in macOS Tahoe 26.4.