The Autofill feature of Safari makes logging in to websites much easier in iOS, not having to remember and type in every single password for every website under the sun that you come across. While saving passwords with autofill is undoubtedly helpful, it can also mean it’s easier to forget what a password is, since … Read More
Note: This is an advanced topic aimed at expert Mac users. Macs are generally thought of as secure, certainly at least compared to the alternative world of Windows. But the reality is that while Macs are generally more secure than Windows, there is still legitimate potential for malware getting through to Mac OS X, despite … Read More
iOS allows users to control what apps can access the images and photos stored on their iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This is handled through the Privacy settings and offers granular control over which specific third party applications are allowed to pull images from the Photos app, Camera Roll, and also whether or not they … Read More
The iWork suite of productivity apps include Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, and each of them allow users to password protect individual documents. In practice, this means that a document created within iWork in iOS, Mac OS X, or iCloud, can be safely locked with built-in encryption, and the document can not be opened or viewed … Read More
Some Mac users may wish to disable IPv6 networking support on their machines. This may be desirable to avoid certain networking conflicts, or to increase security for users in higher threat environments, since IPv6 has been found by researchers to be potentially vulnerable to man-in-the-middle and other network attacks. Though most users don’t use IPv6 … Read More
Have you ever needed to know what type of security and encryption method a wireless network is using? While the Mac will figure this out itself when joining most networks, you may need to relay the information to others, or specify it yourself when joining other networks. You can get the encryption protocol in use … Read More
Two hugely important software security updates have been released for many Apple devices recently, and if you haven’t updated your software to the latest versions yet, you really should do it while you have some free time this weekend. Do this for all of your own Apple hardware, do this for your parents Macs, grandparents … Read More
Apple has released OS X 10.9.2, a fairly major update to OS X Mavericks that includes resolutions to many problems and bugs encountered by Mac users. Critically, the OS X 10.9.2 update patches the SSL / TSL vulnerability for Macs that was fixed earlier for mobile devices with the iOS 7.0.6 update. The SSL fix … Read More
Apple recently released iOS 7.0.6 with an important security update for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch users – if you have an iOS device, you should install that update right away. Though the 7.0.6 bug fix description was initially vague, further information we’ll detail below points to just how potentially serious the security issue is (or … Read More
iPhone and iPad users have the option to enable a “Do Not Track” setting on their iOS devices for Safari, a feature that is aimed at limiting targeting and tracking of web browsing behavior by various web services. When turned on, this causes Safari to make a DNT request to each page it visits for … Read More
If you’ve ever joined a public wi-fi network and noticed the Finder sidebar is suddenly filled with other unfamiliar computers and network shares, and then curiously clicked on one of them, you’ve probably discovered that most of these computers have a user ‘Public Folder’ accessible to you and everyone else. This folder is included with … Read More
The optional iOS Restrictions settings provides a way to limit access to adult themed websites from Safari on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, but for some purposes those default restrictions may not go far enough. For those looking to gain additional control over web access, users will find that individual websites can be added … Read More
Advanced users may need to add a user account to the sudoers file, which allows that user to run certain commands with root privileges. To greatly simplify what that means, these newly privileged user accounts will then be able to execute commands without getting permission denied errors or having to prefix a terminal command with … Read More
Virtually all iPhone and iPad users should set an iOS passcode for their individual devices. This forces anyone attempting to use the device to enter a password before being able to unlock it or gain access to anything on the device, and it also requires the same passcode before any user is able to make … Read More
The Safari web browser for iOS provides for tremendous user control over how web cookies are handled on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, allowing users to choose to block all cookies, allow all cookies, or selectively block only third party tracking and advertiser cookies.
Do you use the Safari browser and shop on the web often from a Mac with Mac? If so, you can greatly speed up your checkouts and online ordering by storing credit cards securely within Safari’s AutoFill Keychain. This makes it possible to instantly autofill card information when ordering on any site, and if you … Read More
Mac users in higher security risk situations may wish to enable an optional firmware password on their machines,which offers an advanced level of protection. In short, a firmware password is a lower level layer of security that is set on the actual Mac logicboards firmware, rather than at the software layer like FileVault encryption or … Read More
Nearly all Mac users have a login and password required to access the Mac upon boot (and if you don’t, you should!), which provides a reasonable layer of password protection to keep out most prying eyes. Users with more advanced security needs may need to go further to protect their Mac from unauthorized access though, … Read More
