<story><title>Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years</title><url>https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zmv79w/mysterious-mac-malware-has-infected-hundreds-of-victims-for-years</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>epistasis</author><text>&amp;gt;the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren&amp;#x27;t immune from invasive and dangerous malware.&lt;p&gt;This is an area where it&amp;#x27;s really hard to extrapolate from my personal experience to the entire population, but is this really an accurate statement of many people&amp;#x27;s beliefs?&lt;p&gt;I think what people &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; think is that the chances are much lower of encountering malware in the wild on a Mac.  In support of that, having an article this long on a &lt;i&gt;single&lt;/i&gt; piece of malware that isn&amp;#x27;t particularly damaging, would indicate that it&amp;#x27;s not the normal state of affairs in Mac land.&lt;p&gt;I would similarly expect that the chances of drive-by malware on Linux are tiny, perhaps even less common than on a Mac, and thus it would be newsworthy if there were some widespread (in relative terms) Gnome malware, or similar.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s one thing to think that it&amp;#x27;s uncommon, and another to think that it&amp;#x27;s impossible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>NelsonMinar</author><text>People think Macs are virus-free because Apple spent years telling them were. Example ad, with John Hodgman as the Windows guy with a virus. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=M3Z386vXrt4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=M3Z386vXrt4&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years</title><url>https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zmv79w/mysterious-mac-malware-has-infected-hundreds-of-victims-for-years</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>epistasis</author><text>&amp;gt;the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren&amp;#x27;t immune from invasive and dangerous malware.&lt;p&gt;This is an area where it&amp;#x27;s really hard to extrapolate from my personal experience to the entire population, but is this really an accurate statement of many people&amp;#x27;s beliefs?&lt;p&gt;I think what people &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; think is that the chances are much lower of encountering malware in the wild on a Mac.  In support of that, having an article this long on a &lt;i&gt;single&lt;/i&gt; piece of malware that isn&amp;#x27;t particularly damaging, would indicate that it&amp;#x27;s not the normal state of affairs in Mac land.&lt;p&gt;I would similarly expect that the chances of drive-by malware on Linux are tiny, perhaps even less common than on a Mac, and thus it would be newsworthy if there were some widespread (in relative terms) Gnome malware, or similar.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s one thing to think that it&amp;#x27;s uncommon, and another to think that it&amp;#x27;s impossible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>horsawlarway</author><text>I would say it is accurate.  I doubt most users really think it through, and Apple went out of their way to enforce the idea that Macs don&amp;#x27;t get viruses in their advertising campaigns around 2010 to 2012.&lt;p&gt;Most users just don&amp;#x27;t think about it much, and the only exposure they got was ads telling them the thing doesn&amp;#x27;t get viruses, which Apple finally stopped doing in 2012 after have a &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; uncomfortable year... &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wired.com&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;mac_viruses&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wired.com&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;mac_viruses&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re here talking on HN, then yes, you probably fall into the category of folks who properly understand that uncommon != impossible.  I sincerely doubt the vast majority of users make that jump.</text></comment>