Malwarebytes detected 11 threats per endpoint for its Mac users in 2019, up from 4.8 threats per endpoint in 2018, while PCs saw 5.8 threats per endpoint
Antivirus software developer Malwarebytes today shared its State of Malware Report for 2020 [PDF], which suggests that Mac malware is growing much more common.
Context & Ripple Effects
This report extends a pattern documented for years: McAfee counted a 744% jump in Mac malware instances in 2016, driven largely by adware bundling, and Kaspersky found that by 2019 the Shlayer trojan alone accounted for roughly 30% of macOS detections. Malwarebytes' own telemetry now puts numbers on the endpoint level — 11 threats per Mac in 2019 versus 4.8 a year earlier, and nearly double the PC figure of 5.8.
First-order effects
- Mac users running Malwarebytes faced more than double the per-endpoint threat volume of Windows users in 2019, reversing the long-standing assumption baked into buying decisions.
- Antivirus vendors gain a concrete selling point for the Mac market, where third-party security software has historically been an optional add-on rather than a default purchase.
Second-order effects
- Attack economics explain the shift: as the Mac installed base grows, adware bundling and fake app installers like Shlayer scale cheaply, so competitors such as Kaspersky and McAfee are pushed to staff up Mac-specific detection alongside their Windows franchises.
- Apple is forced into a defensive build-out of its own — the trajectory that later produced more frequent macOS malware scanning bringing the OS's built-in protection closer to commercial anti-malware products.
Third-order effects
- If per-endpoint Mac threat rates keep climbing, 'Macs don't get viruses' stops functioning as a marketing asset and platform security becomes a table-stakes engineering cost for Apple rather than a differentiator.
- The endpoint-security market re-segments around actual threat exposure per platform instead of legacy Windows-centric assumptions, shifting budget from enterprise-only AV toward consumer Mac subscriptions.
The trend: As the Mac's installed base grows, malware follows the users, steadily dismantling the security-by-obscurity advantage that kept third-party Mac antivirus marginal.