How to keep your Apple Mac secure

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Summary

Mac security starts with a strong password because the keychain holds passwords to your bank and everything else. External attacks almost always require you giving your password, so you need to know who’s asking. Antivirus is optional for peace of mind, but I’ve never had one and never had an issue.

Raw

As an Apple consultant and a Mac junkie over the years, I’ve seen thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Macs. And when I’m with the client, they often ask me, how can I keep my Mac secure? It’s kind of a big question because there’s so many things that you kind of have to do, so many things you need to do and some things that you don’t need to do because you’ve been told doesn’t mean that you need to do it. So in this video, what I’m going to do is try to go through some of the things I always tell my clients.

The first thing is to have a password on your Mac. Obviously, this is the most obvious thing. So if someone gets access to your Mac, you want a good password, just like you have a good password anywhere else. So they can’t get into it. Because once they get into your computer, they have access to what’s called the keychain. And the keychain holds passwords to your bank and everything else. So having a secure password is kind of top of the list, or the first thing on the list that you should definitely do.

Now, secure means different things to different people. Secure means someone accessing your data, but obviously secure also means not having any kind of attacks, external attacks. The external attack thing is more to do with you, actually. Max and the OS, the operating system, is kind of locked down. So without you giving access to those things, and this is 99.9% true. There’s a small minority of things that can happen without what you do, but generally that’s not going to be you. So having it secure externally is basically upon you. and you giving access. So unless you put your password into the computer, nothing pretty much is going to get access to you. So again, goes back to having a secure password.

So having all these, the PCs actually, and I’m not a Mac PC type person, use a PC if that’s what you need to do. But between a Mac and a PC, the Mac is way more secure because with a PC, there are so many ways that it can get attacked without having your password. So many ways. On an Apple, it’s extremely rare. So, again, it’s not a Mac or PC thing. I’m just telling you how things work, basically.

So the obvious question is, do I need something on my computer to help me fend off these things? Well, two schools of thought, and I don’t believe in one of them. The school of thought is you should have an antivirmed. and whatever. So a virus, let’s talk about the virus thing. A virus only happens when you do something to it. Again, it’s not an automatic thing. So do you need an antivirus? I haven’t had one for the past 20 odd years and in my whole lifetime of 35 years. The only times I got viruses for the computer was at the beginning, and I think I can count them on my hand. And this is a person that deals with computers day in, day out, and this is a person that attaches external things to their computer. So obviously I have a lab, which I do specific things with workshop. But on my computer, no, just I don’t have one on my computer. But so the school of thought is, for me, no, don’t bother having it. But the peace of mind thing is, yes, it might be a good idea to have it, because if you’re too busy, which a lot of people are, people will connect things, put their passwords in, and then they don’t realise they’ve got a Trojan or a virus or whatever.

So there’s so many things that, so many ways to keep your max secure, but the top of the list is have a good password, don’t give your password to anyone, and make sure, whatever is asking for your password is something that you know. If it’s like, I’ve said this before, if you walk down the street and someone says, can I have your keys to the house, you’ll be like, who the hell are you? Right. And that password on your computer is effectively the same thing. There’s something come up on my screen. So if the part, if something comes up on your screen that says, give me your password, it’s the same as saying, give me your keys. Well, who is it that’s asking for your password? Because many people go to a website, malicious website. It will pop up something. But it’s not a pop-up of your computer. It’s a pop-up within the browser. And they think, or it looks extremely good, they think that the computer is asking for something. But in fact, it’s a malicious website looking for your password. So you’ve got to be very careful of that.

So going back to what I was saying, how to keep it secure have a good password make sure you know who’s asking for your password virus apps yes it’s a good idea but personally I do recommend them but I just haven’t had one and I’ve never had an issue with it so that’s kind of up to you but I would probably say do it. I’m sure there are 1,000 or 1 others and I’m sure you have more questions about this So if you do, I’ll leave a link below to book a call with me so we can have a chat about it. It’ll be a free call. I’m not going to charge you anything. So it would be good to know. If you’re getting this video via email, just reply to this email and ask me questions because there are many ways of doing it. But again, have a strong password.

Anyway, have a great day. Again, if you have any questions, let me know. And I’ll see you in the next one. Ciao.