For years Apple fans insisted that there was no malware operating on Macs because it was secure, which made Phillip Durachinsky's job somewhat more relaxed.

Durachinsky was arrested in January 2017, and charged a year later, in January 2018.

US authorities say he created the Fruitfly Mac malware back in 2003 and used it until 2017 to infect victims and take control of their Mac computers to steal files, keyboard strokes, watch victims via the webcam, and listen in on conversations via the microphone.

Court documents reveal Durachinsky was primarily focused on watching victims, having collected millions of images on his computer, including many underage children.

Durachinsky wrote his malware when he was only 14, and used it for the next 14 years without Mac antivirus programs ever detecting it on victims' computers. This was because everyone believed that Macs were secure and no malware existed.

No-one spotted the virus until early 2017 when the FBI Cleveland branch was called in to investigate a malware incident at the Case Western Reserve University.

FBI investigators found the FruitFly malware on the university's computer systems, and the trail eventually led back to Durachinsky, resulting in his arrest.

It turned out that Durachinsky had used a technique know as port scanning to identify internet or network-connected Macs that were exposing remote access ports with weak or no passwords.

He then logged into these remote systems via the open service ports and installed and hid Fruitfly on users' computers.