macOS is known as an operating system that doesn't really have problems with viruses and malware, but 2016 wasn't such a great year for Apple, according to McAfee. The famous computer security company claims that during 2016 the number of types of malware detected on the OS X and macOS platforms increased by 744% to no less than 460.000 detections made on users of McAfee applications.
Basically, we are talking about a colossal increase in malware detections made on the OS X and macOS platforms in 2016, and this is because hackers' interest in this platform is increasing. In recent years, the sales of Macs have been continuously increasing, and this has also determined an increase in the number of types of malware detected by various Mac antivirus applications.
However, although the percentage of growth of Mac malware versions is on a colossal rise, the 460.000 detections represent less than 1% of the total of 600 million detections in 2016. Of these, 15 million were on mobile devices , the vast majority on Android, so OS X and macOS represent a very small part of the malware detections made in 2016.
Moreover, the vast majority of malware was distributed through advertisements displayed on various websites on the Internet and not necessarily through applications distributed by websites. All computer users are exposed to this type of malware, but this does not make the macOS platform any less secure, overall, compared to other computer platforms.
macOS remains the most secure operating system for computers, and the small global user base keeps the interest of hackers at a fairly low level for now.
