3 Surefire Ways to Find Viruses and Malware Hiding on Your Mac
Users can check whether the Mac has hidden viruses and malware.
Mac illustration. (PIxabay/tranmautritam)
- Even though Apple claims its Mac devices have a secure system, there is always an opportunity for malware and criminal threat actors to gain access to the Mac.
Therefore, users are advised to always check manually for any viruses or malware that have infiltrated the system undetected. Here's how to check your Mac for viruses and malware:
1. Decreased performance
One indication of the possibility of malware and viruses infecting a Mac is a significant decrease in performance speed.
One of the best ways to find out what exactly is causing your Mac's sluggish CPU performance is through an application on your Mac called Activity Monitor.
Go to Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.
In the Process Name field located under the CPU tab, look at whatever is listed and at what percentage
CPU required to operate.
If users find malicious apps and malware inside Activity Monitor, click on the item and then select the X button at the top left to stop it.
After that, go to the Memory tab and analyze the Process Name section to see if there are any unknown or unusual process names that are not recognized.
Closing the malicious application may solve the problem temporarily, but it is possible that if malware is on the Mac, the application will open again and continue its malicious activity.
2. Browser extensions
When downloading apps, users can limit their Mac to only apps installed from the App Store. However, there is no such option for browser extensions, where users can only install them from third-party websites and stores, which means there is a possibility of users adding something malicious to the Mac.
If the user uses Google Chrome, click the three dots on the far right side of the application, then select Extensions > Manage Extensions.
Scan through browser extensions and remove any suspicious extensions that have been added.

Apple Mac illustration. [Shutterstock]
3. Suspicious apps and downloads
Checking the list of installed applications on a Mac should be done regularly to ensure the user has actually installed them all and still wants to install them.
Open the Applications folder, located in the left sidebar of Finder.
Look for any apps that users didn't install themselves. Right-click the application you want to delete and select Move to Trash.
Any file downloaded from an unknown or untrusted source has the potential to contain malware and viruses.
By performing one of the actions above, users can check whether there is malware or viruses on their Mac.