macOS cyberattacks surge 65% in Portugal

A new global threat report from ESET reveals a significant rise in cyberattacks targeting macOS systems, with Portugal experiencing a particularly sharp increase. While global detections for macOS grew by 38% between December 2025 and May 2026, detections in Portugal surged by 65%, nearly double the global rate.

The most frequent threat identified in Portugal was the trojanOSX/PSW.Agent, which accounted for 31.6% of all macOS detections and focuses on credential theft. Other notable threats included potentially insecure tools like OSX/Keygen and unwanted programs such as MacBoost and MacKeeper.

Beyond Apple ecosystems, phishing remains a major vector in Portugal, representing approximately 40% of all detections. Additionally, there has been an increase in attacks targeting corporate infrastructure, including a 15.5% rise in SQL service exploitation attempts and increases in attacks against SMB and RDP protocols.