The Number Of Phishing Attacks Targeting Mac Has Doubled In The First Six Months Of This Year

The number of phishing attacks targeting users of macOS is projected to double this year. The reason behind this increase is claimed by Apple to be its 30% to 40% growth each year.

In the first six months of 2019, a security company has detected over 1.6 million attempts to fool Mac users to use their Apple ID credentials to log into a website pretending to be from Apple.

However, according to Kaspersky, this figure is only for users who use the company security software. Many of these attacks happen in the corporate environment, meaning the true number of attempts might be much higher.

Here are the most common ways bad actors use to steal Apple logins:

Telling you that your Apple account is locked and you have to login again to access it.

Sending users a receipt for a purchase they did not make with a link to cancel it.

A fake message claiming to be from Apple Support telling users that they had detected an issue with their Mac.

These emails and websites may look really convincing, explaining why so many people have fallen for these tricks. The only clue that may give away hackers’ scheme is the URL so if you have friends who are using Mac, make sure that they are aware of the risk.

For now, sending emails that pretend to be from some bank is the most common among these phishing attacks. While the hit rate of this method is low, because the chances of the receivers having that exact same bank are thin, the reward for a hit is huge.

So to avoid falling victim of these phishing attacks, only visit your bank’s website from the one you have bookmarked or manually type in the URL yourself. Avoid clicking on a link sent by an email at all costs.

Installing a virus in macOS is extremely difficult, so attackers will often target Mac’s adware. Some of the most common practices are displaying ads from the ad network of the hacker instead of the ones that would normally appear on the visited sites. Other methods include changing the default search engine or the browser homepage.

Here is what you can do to protect yourself from these phishing attacks. Only download apps from the developers you trust or straight from Mac App Store. A commonly-exploited route to spread malware is by fake updates to Flash Player.

Help your friends by letting them know that they should never fall for these updates, or better, do not allow Flash on their Mac at all.