macOS Has Malware: Apple Manager Graig Federighi Admits

Windows has malware, Macs are safe: this is a myth that persists but has long since ceased to apply. Apple cannot put that in a better light, as you can see from the current statements by manager Craig Federighi.

Of course, Apple doesn’t officially admit anything, at least not if it doesn’t necessarily have to be. Rather, you emphasize how much you have improved security and not what was not right before. The subject of security was also on the agenda at the negotiation in the Epic Games case against Apple, because that is also one of the main arguments for Apple controlling and restricting iOS and the App Store in such a way.

That was also the central statement of Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, in court The Verge reported. According to the Apple manager, Apple’s mobile operating system must therefore be an isolated ecosystem, primarily for security reasons. In the course of his remarks, however, Federighi also surprisingly openly admitted that the security of macOS does not have the same standard as on iOS.

macOS is worse than iOS

“If you were to apply the security techniques of the Mac to the iOS ecosystem, with all of the devices and assets, it would be overrun to an extent that is dramatically worse than what’s already happening on the Mac,” said Federighi. “And as I said, we have a level of malware on the Mac today that we find unacceptable and that is much worse than on iOS.”

Overall, Federighi tried to argue why you can’t roll out the same software distribution model on iOS as you can on macOS – which a source like the Epic Games Store would allow. Whether the Apple manager actually wanted to paint such a sobering picture of macOS security remains to be seen.

“iOS has set a dramatically higher bar for customer protection. The Mac doesn’t live up to that bar today. Even though Mac users inherently download less software and are exposed to a far less economically motivated attacker base,” said Federighi. who also admitted that he had had people in his own family who caught malware on their Macs.