Since it’s release date, Mac was a nice option for those who care about their data privacy and cybersecurity. Because of macOS architecture, there were almost no viruses capable of infecting this platform. That is why many Mac owners considered themselves as perfectly protected from all possible threats and viruses.
But over time we see the growing number of new viruses that can work on Mac. So that is why Mac users can’t feel that protected as it was earlier.
Is It Really That Bad?
In the past year, we have seen at least three massive data breaches and malware epidemics and one of them was a “NotPetya” ransomware that infected thousands of computers across the globe.
As the further researched shown, a solid portion of ransomware victims were Mac users. This fact shows that in 2018 you can’t pay zero attention to your data security and think that you are not in danger because you use Mac.
Another source of hacks and data breaches is the usage of different plugins and browser add-ons. Many of us already know that those extensions, if not a paid software, collect lots of your sensitive personal data and sell it to third parties. And many of us are perfectly okay with this fact. The problems begin when one of such extensions begin extensively using your computer for malicious needs. It can send automated requests, be a part of a botnet, show you unwanted ads or even try to steal your identity, SSN or credit card data.
Where You Can Get a Virus
The main sources of malicious applications are websites with hacked programs or doorway-websites that lead you to another website that looks like Gmail, Facebook or other famous websites. These scam websites often ask to install some add-on to watch a video or listen to music. Tactics could be different but they all motivate visitors to install something on their Mac.
After the installation is complete, malware can wait for a while to not drive too much of attention from the very start and pretend a legit software.
How to Identify if Your Mac is Hacked
Symptoms are quite obvious. Any Mac infected by a virus will start showing you unwanted ads or say that your data is at risk and you need to pay for it to be cleared. Another good sign of hacking is when Google start showing you its captcha for no obvious reason for that. This may occur because something on your Mac is making tens or even thousands of automated queries per hour and search engines or other websites are trying to prevent that.
How to Remove a Virus if You Have One on Mac
Removing a virus from Mac is easier than it is on computers running on Windows. The first thing you need to do is to try to identify the possible source of the threat. Try to stick to this guide on how to remove malware from Mac for steps to take when your Mac is hacked.
If you recently installed any new software or plugins, it is more likely one of them is hacked or have security vulnerabilities that allow malicious actors access and control your Mac.
And here’s what you need to do:
- Delete everything you recently installed and check if anything is changed after that. In some cases, this step helps and no further action is required. Except maybe not installing any similar software or plugins from the sources you cannot fully trust.
- Install one of the security software solutions available on the market. We recommend using the paid software at least in a trial mode to pinpoint and eliminate the threat. In the most cases, that is enough to restore your Mac’s original performance and functionality.
- If none of the steps above helped, you may try to restore a system backup from iCloud or the external storage. This is a solution of last resort, but it will definitely restore your Mac to the state of proper working. The only real disadvantage of this approach is that you may lose all the data and work files you created after the last backup.
This may look like not a big deal, but for some of you, it may sound like a disaster. If that’s your case and you have lots of vital data on your Mac which you simply can’t lose, call to one of the local authorized Mac repair service centers and ask them to restore your data after a virus attack. This will cost you some money but sometimes files can worth ten times more than you will have to pay for the professional data restoring services.
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