Nearly half of the malware in Apple's macOS comes from MacKeeper

CTOnews.com November 16, Elastic Security Labs released the 2022 Software threat report. In this report, malware found in the past year is analyzed and filtered by operating system and type of malware. Although the report focuses on the Windows and Linux platforms, it also introduces the security threats that exist on the macOS platform.

By operating system, 54.4% of the malware found in the past year was for Windows, 39.4% for Linux, and only 6.2% for macOS. As for the company's method of identifying malware, the report said: "the telemetry data of the Elastic security solution is generated by different sensors and data sources. Because there are too many sensors and data sources, it is illegal to describe briefly in the report, including but not limited to sensors developed by Elastic."

CTOnews.com learned from the report that almost 50 per cent of malware came from MacKeeper. Elastic said in the report:

In terms of macOS file signing, MacKeeper malware accounts for the highest proportion, reaching 48%. XCSSet, which ranks second, is no more than 17%.

MacKeeper is a practical software suite for macOS terminals designed to help optimize resources and monitor internal resources. Although its original purpose is to help MacOS users, it is often abused by hackers because it already has extensive permissions and access to processes and files.