Top 10 Best Tips to Protect Your Mac from Hackers

Apple has mixed human intelligence and advanced technologies to create some amazing machines. Macs are the example of this impressive combination.

Macs offer you the freedom to work seamlessly without worrying about performance issues as it offers many built-in utilities to deal with any problem that arises on your system. These built-in utilities caters for solution to some basic to most advanced issues like virus and malware attacks.

Today’s content is centered on the top 10 best tips to protect your Mac from hackers and/or cyber-attacks

1. Update Apps and OS X Software

 

Old software with known loopholes remain prone to cyber threats all the time. To deal with this issue, every software developer releases software updates at regular intervals with certain bug fixes, security patches, and other useful features.

If you have received software update notification recently then you should be quick to install that. Further, you can also look for updates manually by heading to Apple menu => Software Update.

Apart from it, you should also consider updating apps with latest updates available in App Store.

2. Create Standard User Account

Using administrator account for system configuration and other administrative privileges and using standard account for other work can help you keep your system away from many unseen problems.

It will help you keep tab on those apps that needs administrative privileges. This way you can decide whether you want to give access to those apps or not.

To create standard user account, go to Apple menu => System Preferences => Users & Groups. Tap on lock icon below and fill in the administrator details. Now click on “+” button and select the user type (Standard).

Once you enable the standard user account, you can install apps and tweak settings related to your account. It doesn’t allow you to add other users or tweak settings for other users.

3. Disable Automatic Login

Automatic login on boot may cause a serious security threat to your data. To disable automatic login, tap on Apple menu => System Preferences => Users & Groups. Press Lock button below and enter administrator details.

Next, click on “Login Options” and go to Automatic Login option. Here, change the setting to “Off”. Now tap on “Display login window as” and choose the Name and Password to login.

4. Disable Remote Login

If you are not using remote login option on your Mac then it’s better to disable it. To do this, tap on Apple menu => System Preferences and select Sharing Option.

Here, uncheck “Remote Login”. It will help you avoid any unauthorized login to your system remotely.

5. Apply a Firmware Password

Firmware password will block unauthorized access to your system if someone tries to boot your Mac with USB stick or try to wipe out data from system hard disk.

To enable a firmware password, reboot your Mac and press and hold CMD + R keys just before Apple logo appears.

Release the keys once you see the boot-time progress bar. Choose your location and language when prompted. Now tap on Utilities => Firmware Password Utility and follow the instructions.

6. Enable Firewall

Most users think that firewall comes enabled by default on your Mac OS machines, but often it isn’t. To enable Firewall on your Mac, go to System Preferences => Security & Privacy => Firewall tab. Tap on padlock icon at the lower left corner to tweak system settings.

Here, you need to enter administrator details. Now click on Turn on Firewall button to enable it. Go to Firewall options under Firewall tab to make necessary changes.

7. Install Reputable Security Suite

Apart from relying on built-in security features on Mac, you can also think of installing Mac antivirus program to keep dual protection in place.

You can look for best anti-malware program for Mac to keep your system safe from all malware threats. These programs work on smart algorithms to offer you an extensive and real-time security.

8. Disable Automatic File Opening After Download

This is a necessary tweak under Safari settings. When you download something on Safari, it usually opens the safe files once downloaded. You can disable this setting to avoid unnecessary trouble.

To do this, go to Safari Preferences => General tab. Here, uncheck the box next to “Open Safe files after downloading”.

9. Beware of Random links & Attachments

While being online, you should know that any random link or attachment can bring a malware threat to it.

This is one of the most practiced strategies to spread malware around the world. Thus, you should be careful when clicking on an unknown or suspicious links or even attachments.

10. Download from reliable Sources

This simple step can help you keep your Mac safe effortlessly. To get access this feature, go to System Preferences => Security & Privacy => General tab.

Under “Allow Apps Downloaded From” section, you will find 3 options. Select “Mac App Store and Identified Developers”.

It will allow you to download apps from App Store and other reliable sources that are known and confirmed to be safe by Apple.

Wrap Up:

Mac offers many useful utilities to deal with almost all type of issues on your system. Using these built-in utilities, you can find and fix all performance issues.

Going further to keep user data safe, it offers multiple security features including: Firewall, XProtect, Gatekeeper, Sandbox and much more. In addition to that, you can also look for third-party security tools to keep your Mac PC safe & well-protected.

In Summary: With certain tweaks in settings and using built-in utilities on your Mac, you can keep your system secured and invulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Talking about these 10 tips to protect your Mac from hackers, do you have a thing or two to add? Please do share them with us in the comments section below.

Credits: The making of this content is credited to Yogesh Sharma of blogs.systweak.com.