A bug has been discovered on the iPhone running iOS 6.0.1 and iOS 6.1 which allows users to bypass the lock screen passcode and gain access to a users Contacts and the users Camera roll. The trick only works on iPhones because it uses the Emergency Call button. Here’s how it works, though we caution … Read More
An unusual Mac bug has surfaced in OS X that causes any application to immediately crash just by typing a short character sequence. The bug was first reported on OpenRadar and is thought to relate to the spell checking and autocorrection features, though the bug is also replicable in prior versions of Mac OS X … Read More
From iOS 6.1 onward, users can now reset the Advertising Identifier on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This means you can basically throw all the anonymously gathered data about a device that is used to serve relevant ads out the window and start fresh, thereby removing any of the targeted data that has been … Read More
If you want maximum security with your iOS device, having a strong password is essential. Though you can extend password strength by using a phrase with mixed characters, another excellent option is to use special accent characters, making a password virtually impossible to guess. The idea is fairly straight forward: take a word, sequence, or … Read More
Find My iPhone and Find My iPad are security features that make it simple to locate lost iOS devices by tracking them on maps through GPS. A potential problem is that after a device has been lost, or perhaps more accurately, after a device has been stolen, GPS or Find My iPhone can be turned … Read More
If you accidentally permitted a Mac app to gain access to things like your personal contacts list or location, or you’d just like to start over again and have granular control over which applications can access certain data, you can use the command line tool tccutil to change this and reset Mac app access to … Read More
Photos taken with digital cameras, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, all include some level of EXIF data, which is basically metadata with information about the image. With pictures taken from the iPhone and other smartphones, that data can even include details like precise geographic coordinates where the image was taken, (though that’s easy … Read More
If you want to restrict app usage for a particular user on a Mac, there is no easier option than Parental Controls. This is a great solution for parents setting up a limited-access account for a kid, for public usage Macs, Macs in the enterprise, or even just for a restricted Guest account for when … Read More
Siri works from the Locked Screen in iOS, letting you get things like the weather, make quick phone calls, and a variety of other incredibly useful tasks, but for the privacy and security buffs out there, this may be considered undesirable.
The most simple screen saver in Mac OS X is just a floating grey Apple logo  against a black background, but you can make that screen saver significantly better by attaching a customized message to it, which will be added along with the logo and move about the screen of the Mac. You can … Read More
A new update labeled Java for OS X 2012-006 has been released for all versions of Mac OS X. The updates name is somewhat misleading however, in that instead of updating Java it actually uninstalls the Java applet plugin from all web browsers on the Mac. This is done as a security precaution to protect … Read More
For those with iPhones, iPads, and iPods who don’t want to be served more relevant ads by way of anonymous usage tracking, a new setting in iOS 6 allows users to flip a switch to limit such ad tracking on their device. To be clear, this setting is about serving targeted advertisements based on anonymous … Read More
If you suspect someone is using your Mac while you’re away and getting into personal documents and files, the easiest way to quickly find out is by looking at the Recent Items list in OS X.
Time Machine backups can be encrypted right from your Mac. This means the backed up data is extremely safe from prying eyes and the very unlikely event of a cracking attempt, and it also means you’ll need a password to access the encrypted backups yourself. Enabling encrypted backups in Time Machine for Mac OS X … Read More
It’s now easier than ever to quickly encrypt external disks and hard drives from Mac OS X, whether they are USB drives, Firewire, flash drives, or even SD cards. While you can still use the traditional route to encrypt disks through Disk Utility, from modern versions of MacOS and Mac OS X the process is … Read More
If you are tired of keeping up with all the Java security updates and potential vulnerabilities, you can avoid a potential problem completely just by disabling Java. For the average user, we’ve recommended keeping Java disabled as one of the primary means of protecting a Mac against potential malware, viruses, and trojans. In fact, the … Read More
Apple has released an update to Java aimed at addressing the recently discovered security issue that could impact some Mac users. The update, dubbed “Java for OS X 2012-005”, is available for users of Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8. All Mac users eligible for the update are recommended to install it. You can … Read More
If you’re running the newest versions of OS X you’ve probably noticed that when apps attempt to access your Contacts list you will get an alert like “Application would like to access your contacts”, giving you the ability to allow or deny access. The apps that make the Contacts requests then get stored in a … Read More
