Online tech support scams are on the rise for a reason. They are so prolific and effective because their essence is twofold. One facet involves a piece of malware that hijacks a browser, and the other revolves around exploiting human credulity and desire to keep a computer safe. The large-scale Zeus virus scam wave is quickly gaining momentum as an instrument to defraud Mac users of their money.

One of the biggest blots on the present-day cybersecurity radar is the consistent growth of Mac malware. The driving force of this trend is adware, a form of harmful code that largely focuses on throwing victims’ web browsers into disarray while additionally causing some turmoil in the functioning of the computer on the whole. "... will damage your computer" is a typical threat from this category that displays unwanted ads and redirects the browser to sketchy websites.

In the growingly hybrid world of Mac malware, multipurpose infections such as GoSearch occupy a broad niche. This strain of harmful code accompanies scareware, operates as a browser hijacker, and collects victims’ personally identifiable information to pave other threats’ way into systems. Whereas the takeover of web preferences is the most conspicuous symptom, effective cleanup presupposes more than fixing the browser side of things.

Well-known researcher unveils a new powerful exploit that allows executing malicious Office macros on a Mac computer with zero user interaction. Macros in Office documents are intended to facilitate the execution of iterative tasks. These are shortcuts to performing routine actions and therefore they are, ideally, both helpful and benign. However, in pursuit of workarounds to plague systems with malicious code, cybercriminals have been mishandling macros for years.

Browser preferences are among the fundamentals of regular computer use, being nifty shortcuts to personalize one’s Internet experience. This convenience works flawlessly until a piece of malware shows up. The category of harmful code called adware is the one to blame for tweaking victims’ web navigation defaults, as is the case with the Yahoo redirect virus on Mac. This article explains the mechanics of said attack vector.

Mac users who think the basic online privacy provided by their browser of choice isn’t enough run the risk of falling for a redirect trap with a flavor of adware. There are plenty of fake anonymity services that don’t carry through with their promises. Meanwhile, there are entities like Search Encrypt that might accommodate some privacy features but use unethical marketing and cause irritating browser redirects.