Make OS X More Secure Now

I just ran across this nice two part series (easier part one, more advanced part two) discussing some ways to improve security in Tiger while waiting for Leopard to come along. The author, Sebastiaan de With, discusses some unfortunate choices made by Apple with regards to, among other things, firewall, networking, and Bluetooth settings, and offers suggestions for how to fix these and other potential problems. He also offers some good ideas for portable Mac users.

Now inevitably these sorts of considerations (much like security practices in air travel) involve weighing convenience against safety. I know a lot of my own practices (e.g. auto-login, running as administrator) are dangerous, but it's hard to break bad habits. What other security advice do you think is important?

graphic: Sebastiaan de With

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Source: http://blog.cocoia.com/

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I just ran across this nice two part series (easier part one, more advanced part two) discussing some ways to improve security in Tiger...

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trever miller

Some software chokes during install, and then runs strangely after the fact unless you install it as an admin user etc. (Yes, i have pointed out the problems with their installer to the culprit in this case, namely DxO Optics Pro).

Overall though, running as a non-admin user worked well enough for me but I didn't really see any actual additional benefit given lack of exploits in general for admin-level users etc.

April 23 2007 at 1:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Luigi

I dont really think this is nessesary.

Ive had no problems with Tiger for quite a while. Is there even any point to running non-admin?

March 12 2007 at 7:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ulf Dahlen

Well, the author seems to think you are running as root in a standard OS X setup. This is not correct. You are in the Unix admin group and an "Administrator", but that is not root. Although not as safe as running as a non-Administrator, it's not as dangerous as running as root or running as an Administrator in Windows (where you are in effect "root").

Also, I've tried to run as a non-Administrator, and it works very well. Just create a new Administrator account, login as that user and demote yourself (the original account). You get more prompts in daily use, but it's OK.

BUT: what's the point? With a little bit of careful surfing, you are extremely unlikely to get into trouble when using OS X. I even run some Windows boxes as Administrator without anti-virus or anti-spyware software, and it works file. JUST BE CAREFUL. THINK BEFORE CLICKING!

March 12 2007 at 6:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply