Security

You can reset a lost Administrator (the original account you created) password in Mac OS X by utilizing a Mac OS X installation DVD, here’s how:

Update: Apple has fixed the exploit, the below link is preserved for posterity but no longer works to display anything abnormal. A few weeks ago, there was an active XSS Exploit on Apple.com with their iTunes site. Well, a tipster sent us the exact same cross site scripting exploit found again on the Apple iTunes … Read More

Adobe Flash cookies are not deleted when you remove your browser cookies, because they are stored independent of your browser, meaning Flash cookies from Safari are accessible via Firefox, and vice versa. The interesting thing about Flash cookies though is that they could technically track your web browsing long after you have left the site … Read More

You can securely delete files from Mac OS X right from the Finder. This is by far the simplest method to securely delete something on the Mac, and the process is pretty straight forward, very similar to the normal procedure of deleting a file except that you will access a separate option to enable the … Read More

Update: Apple has fixed the exploit! I imagine this will get fixed relatively quickly, but you can do some funny (and potentially scary) things with Apple.com’s iTunes Affiliate sites just by modifying the URL parameters. The modified Apple.com URL is formed as follows: http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/download/?artistName=OSXDaily.com&thumbnailUrl=https://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/themes/osxdaily-leftalign/img/osxdailylogo2.jpg&itmsUrl=https://osxdaily.com&albumName=Best+Mac+Blog+Ever Click here for the OSXDaily.com version of the XSS exploit on … Read More

Need to get around the boot level Mac firmware password? You can bypass a firmware password by doing a little bit of a hardware hack. There’s many reasons you’d want to get around firmware protection, but here’s why we got the instructions from an anonymous submitter:

This is a warning to all Snow Leopard users, be aware that a somewhat obscure Snow Leopard bug deletes ALL DATA from a user account, yikes! This will likely NOT effect you, but if you’re a Snow Leopard user you should understand the bug and the consequences. According to CNET: “when logging into the guest … Read More

There are two ways to enable the root super user account in Snow Leopard, the first is probably the quickest. Launch the Terminal and type the following command: sudo passwd root You’ll be asked for the admin password, then you’ll have to set a password for the root account. When you’re finished, the root account … Read More

This is just a quick security tip based on some recent news, a couple Japanese computer scientists have figured out a way to crack WPA TKIP encryption in under a minute. This news came out a few weeks ago but after updating my wireless routers firmware I realized I hadn’t made the encryption type change … Read More

If you really want to lock down your Mac from other users, you can set an Open Firmware (PPC) or EFI (Intel) password that will require a firmware level password immediately upon system boot, prior to Mac OS X being loaded. This is somewhat of an advanced trick and if you accidentally mess something up … Read More

If you ever want to hide a file or folder, you can quickly make it invisible with a command line utility called setfile. This is a really cool tip that should be particularly useful to those who share their mac with other people.

Mac users are largely immune to the world of virus and trojans, but it’s not uncommon for you to be a Mac user in a LAN sea of Windows PC’s. The Conficker Virus is Windows only but it’s garnering a lot of attention, so if you’re on a Windows LAN at home, work, or school, … Read More

It’s a good idea to secure your Mac from prying eyes, and it doesn’t take a lot of work to set some basic security to Mac OS X. This will help protect a Mac and the important files you have on it, and I consider the following three tips to be 100% necessary for almost … Read More

A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to your network card, and some networks implement MAC address filtering as a method of security. Spoofing a MAC address can be desired for multiple reasons, and it is very easy to spoof your MAC address in macOS Monterey 12, macOS Big Sur 11, macOS Catalina, macOS … Read More

Gmail Notifier is a great little utility that lets you know when you have mail in your Gmail inbox. What I have always disliked about it though is the apparent lack of the ability to use the secure https protocol. If you’re on public networks, this can be a particularly valid concern for privacy and … Read More

If your computer is hooked up to a network, you might want to think twice about security because it’s easier than you’d think to snoop private information and emails, particularly over wireless networks. One of the better ways to protect yourself is to use a secured connection like SSH, which will encrypt all the data … Read More

Want to encrypt a file quickly? You can do so with OpenSSL at the command line. A few months ago a question was posed to our readers about encrypting or password protecting a text file [How can I password protect a file?]. We got several good responses but one in particular has really stuck with … Read More

Reader Adam Smith writes in with the following question: “I am a new Mac user, and I love OSX! I have a MacBook Pro 15”. I would like to know though, is there a way that you can lock a MAC? Like in Windows, you can hit the shortcut “Windows Key + L”. Is there … Read More