For many years, it was accepted wisdom that Mac malware wasn’t really an issue. One of the reasons for that was that the market share was simply too low to make it a worthwhile target for attackers. Today, of course, is a very different world. Macs are the fourth most popular brand of personal computers, and as owners of a premium brand, Mac owners make a juicy target. Does that mean you need third-party antivirus software on a Mac, or are the built-in security protections good enough? A very thorough test sought to find out … For a long time, two things protected Mac owners against malware. First, we were a small enough demographic that attackers would be far better off going after Windows PCs. Second, the built-in security measures on a Mac made it a very challenging target. These days, however, there is no shortage of Mac malware around. The question is, are macOS built-in security measures good enough to protect you from it, or do you need third-party antivirus software? Macworld decided to find out by throwing more than 130 pieces of malware at a standard installation of macOS 15.6.1 to see how it fared. The malware was from a collection of known examples put together by the non-profit foundation Objective-See. The results were encouraging. Sure, macOS will allow you to install malware if you insist on granting permissions and ignoring warnings. Going through the malware archive and ignoring/bypassing protection screens, I was able to install third-party software that requested access to my microphone, webcam, keystrokes, and other system functions. During testing, I was allowed to install the NRKIH88 background function, which functions as a trojan; the infamous MacSecurity suite was installed and created background functions, and the LamePyre malware created a mock Discord app that requested permission to record audio and video data. By the end, my Safari start page had been compromised and switched to a website offering Viagra for sale. But the test showed that provided you do heed the warnings, you will be protected against virtually all the malware out there. If you’re the kind of Mac user who mostly sticks to the Mac App Store, trusted developer downloads, and pays attention to Apple’s warning prompts, macOS’ built-in protections are generally enough to keep you safe. There are safeguards in place that honestly do a great job of blocking or quarantining the most obvious malware and raising red flags before shady software can do real harm. Highlighted accessories Photo by Dmitry Chernyshov on Unsplash