Washington Apple Pi

A Community of Apple iPad, iPhone and Mac Users

A Consumer's Guide to Macintosh Security

The February 2004 Washington Apple Pi General Meeting was devoted to a common sense approach to computer security for Macs. Learning how to protect your Mac from threats, foreign and domestic, may not be your idea of fun, but not protecting your Mac is even less fun.

Homework assignment for the meeting:

Introductory Material:

How strong a password?
http://www.wap.org/journal/strongpassword.html

Securing your Mac:
http://www.wap.org/journal/securingyourmac.html

Blackout: what to do after the lights come back on:
http://www.wap.org/journal/blackout/

Security in depth:
http://www.wap.org/journal/securityindepth.html

Intermediate Material:

A security primer for Mac OS X:
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/02/20/security.html

SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) Reading room:
[First two articles]
http://www.sans.org/rr/catindex.php?cat_id=34

Advanced Material:

Bruce Potter, Preston Norvell and Brian Wotring, Mac OS X Security. New Riders, 2003. xx, 385 pp. $39.99. ISBN 0-7357-1348-0

John Ray and William C. Ray, Mac OS X Maximum Security. Sams, 2003. xviii, 747 pp. $44.99. ISBN 0-672-32381-8