Technical support scammers have begun targeting Mac owners, a security researcher said today, adding them to much larger pool of potential victims running Windows because Apple’s operating system has been relatively untouched by malware.

“These scams aren’t being done with cold calls, but by aggressive malvertising,” said Jerome Segura, a senior security researcher with San Jose, Calif.-based Malwarebytes. In some cases, Segura said, legitimate online ad networks are being abused by criminals.

Mac owners who browse to what Segura called “lower-quality websites” may encounter attack code or scripts that hijack the browser to display scary, but bogus, warnings that their machine is at risk, then offer a telephone number to call for technical assistance.

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