Phishing Scams Geared Toward Mac Users Rise

Posted: September 17, 2019

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="432"] Image: TechRepublic[/caption] Most Apple users believe that their devices aren't vulnerable to the nefarious attacks that other brands are. However, criminals and hackers are working overtime to change that. A popular security software has released a report that shows phishing attacks aimed toward Mac users are on the rise. While right now the highest concentration of attacks seems to be outside the United States, it never hurts to be aware of the scams and protect yourself. Jonathan Greig, contributor to TechRepublic, shares the details of the rise of phishing scams geared toward Mac users.

Phishing scams targeting Mac users on the rise with 1.6 million attacks in 2019

Apple users like to think their devices are a bit safer than other brands, but a new report from Kaspersky shows that cybercriminals are increasingly trying to attack Mac customers. Kaspersky's mid-year "Threats to MacOS Users" report highlights just how many attacks the company stops for its customers. In only the first six months of 2019, the number of phishing attacks disguised using the Apple brand grew to 1.6 million. Kaspersky said the total number of phishing attacks have grown exponentially since 2015, when there were only 852,293 attacks. Just in the first half of this year, 5,932,195 attacks were committed, the report stated. "The owners of MacBooks and iMacs are only rivaled by Linux users in terms of the level of confidence in their own security, and we must admit that they are right to a certain degree: Compared to Windows-based systems, there are far fewer threats that target macOS," said Kaspersky researchers Mikhail Kuzin, Tatyana Shcherbakova, Tatyana Sidorina and Vitaly Kamluk, in a press release. Read the entire article, Phishing scams targeting Mac users on the rise with 1.6 million attacks in 2019, on TechRepublic.