It’s hard to recollect a scareware campaign affecting Mac computers as heavily as the long-lasting MacKeeper raid. This application kicked off years ago as the next big thing on the system optimization and security arena, but ended up wreaking havoc with its intrusive marketing. Here’s an insight into the noxious MacKeeper pop-ups that try to scare victims into running a scan and buying the junk software.

As indispensable as they are, web browsers are a weak link in computer security and get exploited big time. It might seem the reason is that people use them to visit various sites, some of which can be hacked or malicious – and that’s partially true. However, the biggest scourge is what the users download and what kind of harmful software can sneak inside the Macs this way. The QSearch virus story is just like that.

Everyone likes the sensation of being a winner, whether it’s a sports achievement, a lottery, or an unexpected freebie from a popular online service. Cybercriminals know it perfectly well. It comes as no surprise that there are numerous scams making the rounds that exploit the subject, such as the “Congratulations you won” popup virus campaign hitting iPhone, iPad and Mac owners.

Generally speaking, the app bundling technique is the best thing since sliced bread for freeware publishers, because it allows them to stay afloat without charging users any subscription fees. For the average user, though, it might be an evil thing often associated with malware distribution. That’s the way the potentially unwanted BeAware Mac app is doing the rounds. Here are the whys and wherefores on that subject.

VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a service designed to ensure the anonymity of communication between computers and to prevent the interception and reading of transmitted data. To safeguard the data sent and received, two things are needed - a special VPN for Mac installed on your computer that will encrypt and decrypt data, and an application on the server of the company providing the VPN service.

The distribution of Mac viruses can be trickier than the use of trojanized spam attachments. Some malicious apps make the rounds by means of social engineering combined with auxiliary infections. This is the case with the Adobe Flash Player update virus target Mac. It redirects a victim’s web browser to sites that recommend updating Flash Player, with the actual payload being scareware or spyware.