This popular anti-malware application has a very intuitive UI, as you’ll notice after the installation is done. Among the many things we liked about it was its ability to remove a lot of malware samples. Another pro: the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware doesn’t take long to perform a scan. Protect your Mac from malware. MacOS has many features that help protect your Mac and your personal information from malicious software, or malware. One common way malware is distributed is by embedding it in a harmless-looking app. You can reduce this risk.

On September 26, 2016 Apple have published their first ever support article on malware. It’s a notable event because for quite a while Macs have been considered immune to malicious code and Mac OS — impenetrable to man-made hazards.

However, either people behind malware have become more inventive or newer macOS is more susceptible to external dangers than previous systems, malware is now a Mac problem, too.

Plus, an unexpected problem has recently surfaced for the owners of 13- and 15-inch MacBooks Pro with macOS Sierra installed. System Integrity Protection (which is a built-in shield against malware) is for some reason off by default on a number of machines. Cases like that only add up to the general virus-related anxiety in the Mac community. On the flip side, since the arrival of macOS High Sierra in late 2017 we got the new file system (APFS) that Apple promises to be ultra-secure.

Here at MacPaw we’ve worked with Mac OS for 10 years and have collected a ton of info on how to keep it safe from harm. In this article we’ll go over possible dangers, ways of protection, and what to do if your Mac is already infected by malware.

How to protect Mac from malware

The first thing Apple suggests doing is turn on your security settings to the maximum, allowing only apps from the Mac App Store or identified developers to be installed on your Mac. This is all good, but the reasons why developers refuse to sell on the App Store are numerous, so there’s a big change an app you need will not be there. It can also be created by developers who don’t have an agreement with Apple and it doesn’t make the app any less valuable or necessary. So what do you do?

1. Avoid software that scares you in its advertisement: your Mac is not under a threat, your system has no critical errors, no, you don’t need ThisApp to save your data.
2. If you have accidentally installed one of such apps and it claims you have something terrible happening on your Mac (ironically, malware usually poses as anti-virus software), the only rule is: never give them your credit card details. The apps that ask for money in exchange for imaginary threat protection or for giving you back control over your Mac are called ransomware.
3. Be on the lookout on websites that distribute illegal (pirated) content. They frequently show huge misleading buttons that install random downloaders or packages and tiny buttons that link to the content need.
4. Google the app developer. Do they have a website? Do they disclose their team, contacts, address?
5. Make sure you’re downloading/purchasing the app from the official website and nothing extra gets installed with it.
6. Avoid unnecessary browser extensions, clean cache and cookies regularly.
7. We could advise you to get a Mac antivirus program or other Mac security software. But the issue with antivirus Mac software is that since the problem is fairly new, few applications deal with it appropriately. Most Mac virus protection apps do little to actually protect your Mac.

It’s better safe than sorry in this case, but what if you already have a trouble?

What if you already installed a harmful program?

Fear not, most of the troubles can be solved quite easily. There are a few ways to remove harmful applications from your Mac and keep all your data intact. For instance, you can use a utility like CleanMyMac X. It will perform the in-depth checkup of your Mac for all kinds of vulnerabilities. CleanMyMac can detect and neutralize thousands of malware threats, including adware, spyware, worms, trojans, miners, and ransomware.

Here’s how to get rid of malware on Mac:

1. Download CleanMyMac X for free.
2. Choose Malware Removal tab.
3. Click Scan.
4. Click Remove.

Mac Antivirus turned scamware

Another frequent issue that Mac users have to face is false advertisement of the antivirus programs. It usually goes like this: a piece of software poses as an Mac antivirus or protective program. It claims to defend your Mac against mysterious threats and keep it from harm. As a matter of fact, these apps are usually called something like Mac-“Defender”, “Keeper”, “Security”, “Doctor”, and “Warrior”. Users install a program they believe will fix their problems, but it turned out to be another scam that arrests their system and demands money.

If you have faced a problem of that sort, you can use CleanMyMac’s Unistaller module to get rid of the application. Usually, it’s enough to run a “Complete Uninstall” to remove the scam app and all of its components and revive your system back to normal. With the same tool you can Reset your apps to the default state if they are misbehaving or conflicting with one another.

Verdict on virus protection on Mac: do you need an actual antivirus for macOS?

Mac OS used to feel like a Great Wall of China for a while, yet now each Mac user has to exercise caution. However, Mac malware in the true meaning of the term is still rare. There are only a few programs created specifically to damage your system. Most of what’s called malware is actually ransomware, adware, and the likes. Something that aims at your credit cards rather than your hard drive.

To sum it up, you don’t need specifically designed antivirus Mac software. And, most of it is not antivirus in the first place: it’s either pointless or harmful.

Malwarebytes Anti-malware Free

That’s why the best protection you can get would be buying apps from trusted developers and making sure you never click on anything that claims your Mac is at risk.

For instance, the latest scam I’ve met looked like Google Chrome updates. The only thing stopping me from installing it was the vague memory that Chrome never asks you to install an update, and that it had a weird link in the popup text. So yeah, to be on the safe side, make sure you know what you’re installing.

These might also interest you:

Though it's not easy to hack into or break through a Mac's security, it is possible, especially if someone accidentally installs malware without realizing it. If your Mac is running slow or you're seeing unusual advertisements within your web browser you might have accidentally installed malware at some point. Don't worry. It happens to the best of us (not me, of course). There are things you can do without having to burn it all down.

The problem: Mac malware in the Library folder

Serenity Caldwell writing for iMore in 2017:

My father-in-law's MacBook Pro had been running into curious slowdowns for a two-year-old laptop and he kept on seeing weird sites taking over his Safari and Firefox search bars. It was clear to me that his browser had been hijacked.

We got rid of the browser hijack pretty quickly — I suggest using Cella's excellent how-to if you ever run into a browser hijack yourself — but the slowdowns were more curious. Upon further investigation, I found a couple of self-professed 'Mac security programs' that popped up, demanding money to 'clean your Mac from junk'.

Spoiler: These programs were the junk. And worst of all, they'd seemingly added a bunch of nonsense files into this computer's Library folder, with random folder names like 'prestidigitation' and 'beeswax'.

Now, I want to preface: I'd never seen an attack like this on a Mac before in my life, and finding this kind of full-Mac hijack is very rare. It's likely that he accidentally installed one of these 'security' programs (or had it installed), which spiraled out of control from there.

These hijacks didn't appear to be able to do much beyond slow down his machine with endless failed attempts to run a program — the process didn't have admin permissions, so it couldn't execute a thing from the library. But because they were there, they were constantly crashing aspects of his Mac. I knew I had a malfunctioning laptop on my hands, so I turned to my age-old troubleshooting checklist.

How to fix a corrupted Mac

If you're working on a computer that has slowed down beyond reasonable aging or is otherwise acting beyond the pale, here are my favorite tactics you can take to try and restore it to its former glory.

Update the system software

This is almost always the first thing I do when troubleshooting Macs: Chances are, the user hasn't installed a security update or other software updates that may be slowing their computer to a crawl.

1. Click on the Apple menu icon in the upper left corner of the screen.

2. Select App Store to open the Mac App Store.

3. Click on the Updates tab at the top of the Mac App Store window.

4. Install all relevant updates. (You may need the Apple ID and password for the machine.)

If the computer is running macOS Sierra, you can avoid having to do this troubleshooting step in the future by turning on Automatic Install in System Preferences, which can automatically download newly available updates in the background, and install them overnight.

1. With the Mac App Store open, click on App Store in the upper left corner of the Menu bar.

2. Click on Preferences.

3. Under Automatically check for updates, check the following boxes:

   • Download newly available updates in the background
   • Install app updates
   • Install macOS updates
   • Install system data files and security updates

Check the disk for errors

If software updates aren't doing the trick, the next thing to check is the hard drive itself. With Apple's Internet Recovery partition, fixing a cranky drive is an easy process.

1. Restart your Mac.
2. During reboot, hold down Command-R until it starts up.
3. Once rebooted, you should be in the Internet Recovery Partition. Select Disk Utility.

4. Click Continue.

5. In Disk Utility, click on the First Aid button,

6. Click on Run to execute.

Your Mac will then run a cursory check on its hard drive to determine if there's anything wrong — and if so — if it can fix it.

Reset the NVRAM/PRAM and SMC

If neither app updates nor disk repair are helping, sometimes a good cache flush can get your Mac running just a bit more smoothly.

To reset the NVRAM (or, on older Macs, PRAM), reboot the Mac and hold down the following keyboard command during startup for at least twenty seconds: Command-Option-P-R.

After you reset your NVRAM, you may be required to reconfigure some system settings (like sound and time zones), which are stored in that cache.

An SMC reset is a bit more complicated, and Apple recommends it only after all other troubleshooting avenues have been exhausted.

If you're using a laptop:

1. Shut down your Mac and plug it in.
2. Restart the computer by pressing the Power button along with the keyboard command Shift-Control-Option.
3. Release these keys, then just press the Power button to properly start your computer.

If you're using a desktop:

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Unplug it and wait for at least 20 seconds.
3. Plug the Mac back in and wait 5-10 seconds.
4. Restart your Mac with the Power button.

Partition your disk (or erase it)

After exhausting all other avenues, this was the solution we came across to properly fix the broken laptop. The hard drive had been so corrupted by these 'security' programs that there was nothing I could do to fix it. When Safari launched over the login screen after a reboot, I knew my usual fixes wouldn't work: It was time to bring out the big guns.

In most cases, I'd grab an external drive, back up the corrupted disk, then wipe the drive clean with the Internet Recovery partition and start over. But there were a couple of reasons that wouldn't work here:

• We were on vacation, and lacking any sort of external media.
• With a semi-corrupted disk, we couldn't just clone the user folder and restore the new disk from a backup — we'd have to do a clean install, which meant moving files over one by one. If we'd missed something and moved all the old files to an external drive, my father-in-law would have had to carry it everywhere just in case.

Given that this laptop had a 500GB hard drive — only 40GB of which was being used — I had an alternate idea: I'd partition the drive, again using Internet Recovery, and install macOS Sierra on the new partition. Essentially, it would be a 'clean' new computer for my father-in-law to work on, but all the original data would still exist on the old partition in case he needed to grab a file.

Note: In order to partition your drive, you'll need enough free space on your drive to do so — at least 30GB. If you're light on space, you may want to back up your corrupted disk to a USB drive, instead.

How to create a partition on your Mac

1. Open Finder from your dock.

2. Select Applications.

3. Scroll down and open the Utilities folder.

4. Double-click to open Disk Utility.

5. Select your hard drive in the Disk Utility window. It will be the first drive on the list. It might be named 'Fusion,' or 'Macintosh HD.'
6. Click on the Partition tab.

7. Click the plus (+) button.

8. Change the size of the partition you wish to use by dragging the resize controls. The used space is represented in blue.
9. Name the new partition.

10. Click apply.

Disk Utility will check the disk and make changes. This will take several minutes.Disk Utility will then make the changes. After that's completed, quit Disk Utility to return to the main Internet Recovery menu.

1. Click on Reinstall macOS.

2. Click Continue.

3. Click Agree to agree to Apple's licensing agreements.
4. Choose the New Mac hard drive as the disk you'd like to install macOS onto.

5. Press Install.

6. The Mac will download a fresh copy of your operating system from the App Store and will install it. The speed of this process entirely depends on your Mac's connection speed to the Internet. You can wait an hour or longer on a slower connection.
7. Your Mac will restart automatically into the new partition once the software has downloaded, then the installation of the operating system will continue.

After you finish setting up the new hard drive, it's time to move your files over. Because of the way partitioning works, your old hard drive partition will show up next to your currently-active partition, just like an external drive; you can then grab any files you need from it.

1. Launch a Finder window.
2. Under Devices in the sidebar, locate your original Macintosh HD.

3. Copy any files you'd like to keep from your old hard drive to the new machine.

Note: If you want to copy over applications, I'd strongly suggest redownloading them from the source — the Mac App Store or the company's website — rather than trying to copy them over from the old partition.

From here, you can follow instructions for setting a Mac up from scratch when it comes to installing and customizing anything else.

Anti-malware Free Download

I generally recommend keeping the old drive partition around for at least a few months in case you or your family member forgets to move something over; after that period, however, you can easily delete the old partition and move to the new partition full time.

Consider additional anti-malware protection

Most Powerful Anti Malware App For Macos Windows 10

While malware on the Mac is rare, it does crop up, as we've demonstrated. Having the right tools to get rid of malware can be an important part of keeping your Mac safe and secure. There are a number of tools that you can choose from, including popular programs like BitDefender and Kaspersky, that will help you keep malware from infecting your Mac.

Questions?

Do you have any must-follow troubleshooting steps? Let us know in the comments.

Most Powerful Anti Malware App For Macos Mac

Updated July 2019: Added a sub-section regarding anti-malware protection.

Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.

Keep yourself secure on the web

Main

We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.

Malwarebyte

Analyst says iPhone 12 will cost more even without charger and headphones

Jeff Pu, an analyst at Chinese research firm GF Securities, predicts that Apple will raise the price of the iPhone 12 by at least $50.