The Practical Guide To Mac Security
How to avoid malware, keep your online accounts safe, and protect yourself from other disasters.
Publisher Description
Learn how to protect your Mac and yourself in an online world. The Practical Guide to Mac Security teaches you how to stay safe online. Learn how to create and use strong passwords to prevent your accounts from being hacked. Find out if you need antivirus software and how you can protect your Mac against malware. Read about scams and cons that try to trick you into granting access to your Mac or installing malware. Learn how to back up your Mac and protect your files and data from disasters.
This book is a guide for the practical Mac user. This is for those who want to buy things online, share over social media and travel with their Mac while maintaining a decent level of security. I’ll show you common sense techniques for staying safe online. The idea is not to build a wall around you, but to learn how to look out for problems and avoid common security pitfalls.
I’m going to give you honest advice. You’ll learn my personal approach to protecting myself, and I’ll share what I recommend to friends and family. Even if you don’t follow every piece of advice I give you, I hope that this book makes your computing life a little more secure and safe.
This is the second edition, for macOS Sierra and beyond.
Customer Reviews
Good start for beginners
Easy to read basic with explanations for anyone new to Macs. Sent it to my sister because she finally switched from PC to Mac but she clicks on everything.
Havent Read the book but greatly support...
The author for writing this book. Bottom line: hardening your Mac is just a precaution, if anyone needs to penetrate your Mac you should be extra cautious. The Mac isnt the goal for the hacker (white or black); its your icloud account, your digital keys, your personal info (like location), copies of your iphone backups (which can easily be dissected for interesting goodies) and pretty much act as your device admin (ie MDM). The most easy way is getting supervisor or root as that allows the infiltrator to forever own your Mac. This usually consists of modifying the ESD (disk01) and the bundled packages to one that makes the computer reinstall only into the modified image he created. This is usually the first step. Other tricks to own the device are security holes that have been patched somewhat but are essentially part of the kernel and can not be entirely fixed. Firewalls are a joke. Antiviruses (which I have used) do not solve any critical security issues that script/malware leverage. The best and only safest way to use a Mac (for the paranoia) is to delete the Apple preinstalled apps like dictionary (bruteforce attacks), X11, java (obviously) to name a few and to never install software from 3rd party developers. However, if you are a target, anything you download will be MITM even from the app store and presto... both your computer activity and mobile phone activities are in the hands of someone else. Even connecting to the Apple servers can be compromised so things like updates and getting authenticated (during fresh installs) by the Apple servers are easily bypassed.
Wow, I could go on forever. Syncing is your enemy once the mac has been compromised. Handoff is perhaps the most dangerous feature and can be abused.
I had my macbook replaced by apple after the software (and I suspected the hardware) had been modified from when I first purchased it. The replacement Mac was given to me without telling me they gave me a “custom” OS that had additional questionable features that can not be revealed here (email me to learn more). The information collected from this device was given to third parties without my consent. When I called to explain the Mac was doing strange things, the customer relations officer explained that there was nothing wrong, and that the proof I was showing had no significance.
I had to learn BSD and linux to find out how different this replacement Mac was and from sources; found my personal information was willingly provided to both third parties and authorities. There goes Tim’s slogan... we put the privacy of our customers first. I dont hate Apple; they got what they wanted at the expense of a diehard customer. But the public needs to know how easily corporations hand over information when they tell the public they dont.
Problem with videos
Every time I was watching the book´s videos, they crashed.