Home windows malware numbers look terrible subsequent to macOS. I’m nonetheless not frightened
However Home windows isn’t fairly a nightmare hellscape. (At the least, not because of this.)
What the numbers say
A better have a look at the information reveals malware hit PCs tougher, sure. That’s not a revelation—we’ve recognized unhealthy actors spend rather more time creating malware for Home windows. PCs dominate the market. A current estimate from StatCounter put Home windows desktop market share at 71 p.c. In actual numbers, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed earlier this yr that month-to-month energetic Home windows PCs had surpassed 1.6 billion units.
In the meantime, Apple’s desktop market share in that very same StatCounter estimate reveals as a bit over seven p.c for macOS alone. (It rises to nearly 20 p.c when macOS and OS X are mixed.) Home windows customers are only a greater goal. Nobody must be shocked the quantity of Home windows trojans and riskware all however pop off Surfshark’s chart, with viruses, suspected viruses, and different hazards trailing not far behind.
Surfshark Antivirus’s risk detection stats for January by way of July 2026.
Surfshark
What the numbers don’t say
In its write-up, Surfshark doesn’t give a lot element past its uncooked knowledge, percentages calculated, rankings of threats per working system, and temporary background on the risk sorts. In consequence, we all know little about their subscriber base. Somebody who pays for antivirus software program for Home windows may have interaction in riskier on-line exercise than their macOS counterpart, for instance.
Surprisingly, Surfshark additionally doesn’t make any direct references to the variations between its 2025 and 2026 knowledge. You can argue macOS is going through rising danger, as in 2025, Home windows customers confronted seven instances extra malware. As macOS’s market share rises, so do the quantity and sort of threats. (We simply noticed a ClickFix assault on macOS, the place customers have been tricked into opening the Terminal app and working instructions that put in infostealer malware.)
You may truly see a touch of this in Surfshark’s knowledge. Proportionately, Surfshark macOS customers usually fell prey to a harmful form of assault: phishing. Phishing could sound innocent, however today, you’ll be able to lose important money (or accounts) to such campaigns. And sending out refined, customized phishing messages doesn’t require the identical effort and funding as creating malware particular to macOS.
