NewsDude
07-31-2008, 04:10 PM
Is the Boogy Man really coming? Now that Macs are becoming popular, are we getting hit with hackers and viruses? Well...what time is it?
Mac OS X is a secure operating system, and that by itself is a challenge to some people. Rather than worry about what some snarky person is doing, it is much more productive to do everything you can do to protect your own machine.
The following are excellent suggestions that I got from a couple of friends who deal with Macs and security on a daily basis.
Don't Use The Administrator Account for Daily Use
Whoever controls the Administrator Account controls the computer. If it is locked and an unauthorized person can't get into it, they can neither retrieve information nor damage what is there.
When we learned to use our Mac most of us started with one account and concentrated on learning how to use our Macs. People who share a computer probably do have more than one account. One of the beauties of OS X is the ability to have as many personal accounts as you want. I never bothered with extra accounts except for the occasional training needs.
No more. I took a half an hour and followed the steps I am recommending below. What I did, and am recommending that you do, is take away administrator privileges from the account you use all the time. Create a separate administrator account because you do have to have one to operate your Mac.
If you are using Leopard, or Mac OS X 10.5, follow these steps exactly. For earlier versions of the OS, modify as needed.
Select Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts. Click the plus button under the My Accounts Field. Unlock the preference window if needed. A new Accounts window will open. Select Administrator from the pull-down menu...
More... (http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61056)
Mac OS X is a secure operating system, and that by itself is a challenge to some people. Rather than worry about what some snarky person is doing, it is much more productive to do everything you can do to protect your own machine.
The following are excellent suggestions that I got from a couple of friends who deal with Macs and security on a daily basis.
Don't Use The Administrator Account for Daily Use
Whoever controls the Administrator Account controls the computer. If it is locked and an unauthorized person can't get into it, they can neither retrieve information nor damage what is there.
When we learned to use our Mac most of us started with one account and concentrated on learning how to use our Macs. People who share a computer probably do have more than one account. One of the beauties of OS X is the ability to have as many personal accounts as you want. I never bothered with extra accounts except for the occasional training needs.
No more. I took a half an hour and followed the steps I am recommending below. What I did, and am recommending that you do, is take away administrator privileges from the account you use all the time. Create a separate administrator account because you do have to have one to operate your Mac.
If you are using Leopard, or Mac OS X 10.5, follow these steps exactly. For earlier versions of the OS, modify as needed.
Select Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts. Click the plus button under the My Accounts Field. Unlock the preference window if needed. A new Accounts window will open. Select Administrator from the pull-down menu...
More... (http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61056)