Security Tips and Tricks for Mac Users

Contrary to popular belief, Mac are not immune to attacking, hacking and malware. There has been an increase in Mac malware, though it’s still negligible compared with Windows malware - but security isn’t all about malware. Mac users are no more immune than anyone else from social engineering attacks, and they still need to protect themselves from direct attack either over a network or directly from a console. furthermore, Macs can carry malware that doesn’t affect them, spreading it to friends via e-mail attachments.

* As in Vista and Linux, it’s wise to restrict access to actions that require Administrator privilages. From an Administrator account, you can remove Administrator access to any other account. If you have only one account and want to restrict access, go to System Preference | Make Another Account, make the new account, remove Administrator privileges from the original account, and log back in to the original account. Use the original account for daily duty and the second account for rare administrator taks.

* Protect the System Preferences from casual tampering. Fo to the System Preferences | Security, then

* Enable require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver and Disable automatic log-in.

* Enable Log out after [x] minutes of inactivity of your Mac is in a public place. Be aware, though, that you may lose your work if it’s not saved when you’ve automatically logged out.

* Enable Use secure virtual memoey. I’m not sure who whould want insecure virtual memory. Without this enabled, your Mac may write a password to the memory thatis really just a file on your hard drive.

* If you’re not using it, turn it off. Go to System Preference | Sharing. Uncheck every service that you’re not using. There are too many services turned on by default.

* Protect all these changes by locking them, which means that altering the options will require an administrator password.

* The Keychain is a great place to store passowrds. It’s also the first place someone would look if they wanted your password. Open Keychain Access, then press Edit and Change Settings for Keychain. Set an idle timeout to protect your passwords when you walk away, and enable Lock on sleep so that if you suspend the machine and start it up again, your passwords will be safe. Use a different password for Keychain than your account password, so if someone gets one they won’t necessarily get both.