Where does the belief that a Mac can’t catch viruses come from? Spoiler: he can take it

It happens to feel family members And friends proudly boast that their Mac be immune to virusand being practically IT manager of my entire family up to the third generation, I have always thought it appropriate to warn them of the danger of such statement (by the way, check out our in-depth look at the difference between antivirus and antimalware).

But where does this come from? arrogance? Let’s start immediately with a shocking one debunking: Macs They are not immune to viruses, as no operating system is.

The myth, however, originates from Apple, which has a considerable responsibility. In fact, until 2012, the company wrote on its website, in the dedicated page to Macs, that one of the reasons we would fall in love with a Mac was because “does not catch PC viruses“, as “a Mac is not attacked by the thousands of viruses that constantly threaten Windows-based computers“.

Ok, he doesn’t say he’s immune to viruses, but to virus of PCs, but the message it is that, also reiterated by a very famous advertising campaign featuring the actor Justin Long of the 2006.

This commercial kicked off six years of advertisingduring which it was stated that Macs had no viruses, while Windows PCs had more 114,000 known.

Which was indeed true, but not for the reasons described by Apple, but rather for the spread of Macs. The spread of computer viruses is largely a numbers game, so it makes sense to design viruses for devices most popular, therefore Windows PCs.

But if in 2009 macOS had a market share of less than 4%In the 2012 this had jumped to the 7%, and in fact that year apple executives had (silently) eliminated the offending phrasereplacing it with the more harmless “Macs are built to be secure”.

Then, suddenly Macs were no more immune from viruses. Statement supported by the fact that in 2015 the first viruses for the apple system were discovered, and for the 2020 the number of malware had increased by 400%. It seems superfluous to say, but it makes sense, given what macOS is based on Linux, and Linux is certainly not immune to viruses.

To date i Mac I’m about the 20% of the market of computers (below, in pink), and are already becoming more interesting than in 2006.

And there is another aspect. For better or worse all Windows users know that they risk a virus, while Mac users unfortunately think they have some sort of immunity, and for this reason they are found with the guard down.

Apple unfortunately hasn’t done much to correct this myth, which aligns well with the modern design of its devices. On the other hand, you can’t blame him: you see an advert with a Mac and the words “Yes, I can get viruses too“? But we must give credit to her that she has become more attentive to safety of users.

In fact, there is now a page dedicated to macOS on the Apple website called “Protect your Mac computer from malware” which explains some good practice to avoid problems, including installing apps outside of the App Store.

And that’s exactly what I make people read whoever he tells me his Mac is immune from viruses.