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New Mac User - How do i secure it?

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C_Adrius
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PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2006 5:23 am    Post subject: New Mac User - How do i secure it? Reply with quote

Hiya, i did an inital Mac securing search but yielded no response so i'm posting this as a question..

I usually use PC's more, but my new purchase of a macbook left me with a great dual booting machine ^^

However I do like the Mac's sheer simplicity... but what about security?

Whenever I get a PC laptop, i put 3 levels of SPyware utilities. 1 ANtivirus program. 1 Firewall and of course Firefox.

When it comes to Macs.. I DON"T KNOW A THING. I was hoping there was an AVG free for macs, but i guess not. WHat do I do to secure a new mac?

Any advice is welcome.

Also i'm new to macs - is there a resource where I can learn EVERYTHING about them?
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moondoggie
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PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2006 3:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

there is no spyware, adware or viruses currently written for the mac. the only thing you really need to do to secure it is to continue to download the software updates as they become available to you. i find firefox will bog down sometimes on my mac, but i've got an older g4 powerbook so i haven't tried using it on an intel mac.

you *could* put a firewall on there if you really wanted to, but i've never found a need so far. being that it has a BSD base you can get a *nix based firewall program. but again, there are so few security issues that aren't fixed relatively quickly that this is just extra overhead imho.

as for mac knowledge, macosxhints.com is a great place for just about anything you want to know. there are lots of other resources out there, but that one seems the most complete to me
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moondoggie
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PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2006 4:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

actually, i stand corrected. there *are* viruses written for the mac, but apple is incredibly good at patching holes in their OS in a timely fashion. as the mac OS becomes more popular you will see more malware and adware written for it, but for now enjoy a relatively virus free existence Smile
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mu
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PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2006 9:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
as the mac OS becomes more popular you will see more malware and adware written for it


I would think that because of Mac OS's BSD background that it is not as easy to create a virus as it is on Windows, the reason being (The same as it is on other Unix based OS's) that the stricter file permissions make it more difficult to infect a file (i.e. in order to infect a file, the user executing the virus, must have write access to the file). And even if a virus did spread, it wouldn't get much farther than to the contents of your home directory.

Quote:
When it comes to Macs.. I DON"T KNOW A THING. I was hoping there was an AVG free for macs, but i guess not. WHat do I do to secure a new mac?


As long as you're not using any of the services, i.e. ssh, ftp etc. you're in no danger. Even if you were there's still very little danger, provided you keep installing the updates as already mentioned. And if you haven't already noticed Apple release update on a very regular basis (every week or two, certainly for panther anyway).

Although there are no viruses for OS X presently, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't use AV software, the reason being that you could obtain a virus and pass it on to another machine (i.e. a Windows based one).

PS. Macs are sexy!
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moondoggie
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PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2006 10:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mu wrote:
I would think that because of Mac OS's BSD background that it is not as easy to create a virus as it is on Windows, the reason being (The same as it is on other Unix based OS's) that the stricter file permissions make it more difficult to infect a file (i.e. in order to infect a file, the user executing the virus, must have write access to the file). And even if a virus did spread, it wouldn't get much farther than to the contents of your home directory.


it's true that the BSD base makes osX much more secure by default, but the start of this year has shown several worms that can spread from osX without needing any special permissions. none of these viruses ever made it to the wild (for the most part) and they were all patched within a week or so of being discovered. but it still stands to reason that the more people that use a system, the more other people will want to attack it. if osX were completely attack-proof then it would be a miracle of nature and they'd probably never update it again for fear of breaking it Wink
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Net411
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 3:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So if I am paranoid and still want protection, what do you recommend for AV and Spyware? I have heard Norton is one of the best but I like McAfee for Windows.
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catwoman
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Currently, you don't need spyware for a Mac and I don't think there's anything written in any case.

Don't use Norton on Mac OS X - it was causing kernel panics and once I deleted it, I had no more problems.
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whitehatsec
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I recently got a HacBook myself, and this antivirus looks interesting (clamXav):
http://www.markallan.co.uk/clamXav/index.php?page=dl
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minkata
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 6:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Being just slightly paranoid I have searched and installed a few programs , they are all free
First "brick house" now called flying buttress ver 1.4 check http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/downloads.html for other security and cool apps . including "check mate" which i am running .
Second "snort" and "letter stick" are excellent open source programme check it at http://www.snort.org/ give your security hips of grunt !
Third "rk hunter" it's an excellent root kit hunter , there are others just as good and free ,check it out at
http://www.rootkit.nl/
mac has also an excellent anti-virus programme , but you will need to outlay a bit of money. Finaly I like to scan attachments ,check http://www.pure-mac.com/virus.html
"ClamXav 1.0.3h" i use "Zebra scanner 2.0 by Novice Software (v2.0.2)" Some of the programmes are a bit Geeky , but since you read this post you are probably close to be one of us if you need a bit of "UNIX" tuts to help along the way check http://www2.ocean.washington.edu/unix.tutorial.html#sample ... There welcome to paranoia and if you can afford it, support the authors and developers of these apps by registering .
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moondoggie
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 11:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

there's another program out there called "little snitch" which will tell you what traffic is trying to go *out* on your net connection.
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