According to a study conducted by Symantec, the amount of malware aimed at Apples mobile operating system (iOS) has more than doubled in 2015, while threats to Mac computers also rose. FireEye also expects 2016 to be a bumper year for Apple malware.
While the total number of threats targeting Apple devices remains low compared with Windows and Android, Symantec is seeing the range of threats multiply. In 2014 it was seeing a monthly average of between 10,000 and 70,000 Mac computers infected with malware.
The number of unique OS X computers infected with malware in the first nine months of 2015 was seven times higher than in all of 2014. A significant amount of this spike is accounted for by so-called greyware - applications that may not have malware attached but can still be annoying to users, by serving up unwanted ads or tracking their web-browsing habits.
Symantec also reveals that seven new threats were aimed at Apples mobile iOS platform, with jailbroken devices - those that have been unlocked - being particularly vulnerable.
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