Yes.
> Or are all the components previously unseen?
Not really.
From TFA:
"My current gut feeling about all of this is that someone basically was designing a piece of Mac malware that would give them the ability to completely remotely control an infected system. And then they also added some ransomware capability as a way to make extra money."
That basically described how ransomware was born, god knows how long ago.
IMO the better question is why the hell attackers targeting macOS haven't been doing this until now (if we take their word for it).
> is there some reason the interviewees and reporter imply this is a mystery?
I suspect the reason is boring: they want to grab eyeballs.
FWIW, I would bet that 25% or more of all enterprise Macs are also going to be running homebrew and a ton of standard unix software.
Is that based on anything much, or is that just a bit of prejudice? Where I work its the PCs that are used as basic e-mail/word/browser machine - the Macs are used by people who are doing a bit more.
that seems like a particularly expensive device for only internet browsing.
>The strength of Apple products is to be perceived as a higher value thanks to design and marketing. People would buy a Gucci t-shirt for 300$, it's also particularly expensive for a t-shirt. At this point people don't buy the product for its intrinsic value, but for status and perceived value.
[0] https://www.dailycal.org/2013/07/19/kanye-wests-ridiculously...
Sure you might have a few benefits, but you must deal with unavoidable pains at every turn.
Ubuntu desktop... I tried multiple times across multiple decades, I've given up.
Not sure what Windows issues exist outside licences disappearing upon reformatting. But that's still exponentially cheaper to fix then any Apple product.
well, perhaps not for you and I guess not really, in my experience, for me, but I have noticed that the population at large seems to suffer recurrent damage related to some ancient decisions made regarding Windows security.
5k & 4K screens, aluminum bodied laptops, MagSafe connectors, MacOS, high performance SSD read/write speeds, T2 onboard security, fusion drives, etc, etc,
People pretend design and development is free, then bitch about their plastic crap cheap laptop.
They've been doing it for a while. Mac has been since the platform with the most malware since the past year or two. It's outclassed Windows.
Adware is more widespread (changing browser homepage, injecting ads, paid popups), I think it makes more money on a regular basis than bricking laptops.