But its unlikely to be any worse than the malware already contaminating Intel Macs.
Apple’s M1 Macs should, in theory, be more secure than the machines they replace.
They use Apple’s own Apple Silicon chips, which have successfully repelled iOS malware for years.
Kaitlyn Baker / Unsplash
But a lot of the iPhone and iPad’s resilience is down to the operating system.
Will the M1 chip make any difference?
Theyre just versions of existing malware, recompiled to run natively on Apple Silicon hardware.
Wardle realized that malware authors might be doing the same, and set to search for Apple Silicon-optimized malware.
He found a version of a well-known piece of adware named Pirrit.
In this case, it installs itself as a Safari extension.
The other recently-discovered M1-native malware is calledSilver Sparrow.
Security researchers Red Canary discovered this package, and it had spread to almost 30,000 Macs by mid-February.
Like most Mac malware, this instance has to be explicitly installed by the user.
Usually theyre tricked into this, either by phishing emails or by dressing the malware up as an update.
So far, these two Apple Silicon-optimized pieces of malware don’t show any special features.
Its probably just a test or proof-of-concept.
What About iOS?
Instead, we continue to see the Mac embracing more of the security model of iOS."
Theres no reason to be especially worried about M1 Mac Malware.
This brings us to the main defense against such attacks: the operating system itself.
On iOS, every app runs inside a “sandbox.”
This keeps everything compartmentalized and safe.
And perhaps our conception of malware as “computer viruses” is out of date anyway.
Instead, bad guys target users through phishing attacks using files.
These files contain minimal codejust enough to get the user to the phishing site itself."
In the end, the most vulnerable part of your setup is you.
