The Practical Guide To Mac Security: Part 10, Three Rules To Protect Your Mac

Check out the rest of the videos in this special course: The Practical Guide To Mac Security.

To protect your Mac from malware, follow these three simple rules.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. This is Part 10 of my course The Practical Guide to Mac Security. This course is completely free thanks to my great Patreon supporters. Go to MacMost.com/patreon to find out how you can join us.
So now we get to a lesson that is really at the heart of this course. It's how to keep your Mac safe from malware. In the last lesson I mentioned that you don't need anti-virus software. But you do need to take care and follow some rules. These are those rules. So whether you call it malware, whether you call them viruses or just something that gets on your computer that you don't want there that's going to compromise your security. Here's how you prevent that from happening. 
The first rule is keep your Mac up-to-date. This should be a fairly simple one. macOS auto updates, just make sure that's turned on. Make sure that you are using the latest version of macOS that your Mac allows. If you have an older Mac you may not be able to use the absolute latest one but keep it as up to date as possible. In addition to major updates like Mojave, Catalina, and all the way up to Monterey you also have minor updates. Things like 11.1, 11.2, that kind of thing. There are even smaller updates, security updates. Make sure you have all that turned on so that you have the latest operating system. That's true for all your Apple devices. 
In addition also make sure that your software is up-to-date. Using out of date software could lead to vulnerabilities. So by software I mean mostly your apps. You may think that, well this app doesn't do anything that could possibly be a problem with security. Well that's not true. Apps are built on top of software libraries. Software libraries contain lots and lots of code. They regularly receive updates to those libraries and the apps you use then use those libraries. So even a minor update to an app could, deep down there, have some sort of security fix for opening a certain type of file or accessing something online. So you want to make sure all your apps, as well as your operating system is up to date and anything else that is software on your Mac. So extensions, extensions for Safari, extensions for the system. Any kind of plug-ins for any software you've got, anything, make sure it's always kept up-to-date. 
To keep your Mac up to date all you need to do is, in the Apple Menu, go to System Preferences, and from there look for Software Update. This will check for an update automatically. Make sure you have Automatically Keep My Mac Up to Date here. Under Advanced you should have all these checked. Check for Updates, Download new updates when available, Install macOS updates, Install app updates from the App Store, and Install System Data Files and Security Updates. Very important. So if you have all those checked your Mac will automatically be kept up to date. 
In the App Store, when you're in here you can go to Updates and it will show you if there are any app updates. But if you have it set to Automatic then you should rarely ever see anything in here unless there's been a very recent update. 
The 2nd Rule is always download from sites you trust. Now if you only use the Mac App Store then you're set. That is a site you should trust. Apple has security protocols in place. Developers have to register their software. There are checks made and if there is any problem Apple can take action against the developer or the software and it's a very safe place to download software. However, if you need to download software from outside the Mac App Store then you should research the apps thoroughly. So if it's an app you want to add first, of course, ask yourself do you really need it. Whether it's worth a small security risk to get it. Can you do without it. Can you find something in the Mac App Store that can do that instead. Make sure that the app is considered to be safe. You could just do searches and read various things that people write on different forums. A search will pretty quickly turn up if there is a problem and that app should be avoided. If you are in doubt you can always ask an expert. If you're still in doubt then you should probably go with not installing the software if at all possible. Keep in mind when I say download from sites you trust I do mean sites literally. So it's not the app so much as the site. For example, there may be an app out there, like say Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop has been around for a long time and it is certainly from a trusted company and it's a trusted app and should be no problem having that on your Mac. However, if you go and download Adobe Photoshop from a site that is not Adobe then you can run into trouble. It can say it's Adobe Photoshop and maybe it actually is a version of Adobe Photoshop but it comes with some malware with it. So it's the site or service that you're downloading from that you need to trust more than the app itself. There are sites out there that say that they are  repositories for software and you can download software from them. Never use those! Go to the developers or publishers website to download software. Never go to a third party place. Only the official site, the official location for that software is where you should download it.
The 3rd rule is simply to stay informed. Any major problem that's going to come up, any security threat to Mac users will certainly be reported heavily in the news. So, just keep up to date, follow MacMost, there are other news sites like Mac Rumors, whatever one you want to choose. Most Mac news sites and technology sites would report on a problem. You don't have to follow everyday but it's good to be up to date and not be totally in the dark and have no idea what's going on if a major problem were to occur. 
So there are the three rules. Just remember these. Practice these and your Mac will stay malware free.

Comments: 7 Responses to “The Practical Guide To Mac Security: Part 10, Three Rules To Protect Your Mac”

Donald Warner

3 years ago

Thank you very much for this advice. It’s very helpful.

Patrick McGeown

Hi Gary, is there an easy way to check that all my installed apps are from the Mac App Store?

Gary Rosenzweig

Patrick: If you look in Launhpad and click and hold to uninstall apps, the ones with the X will be App Store apps. The ones without will either be system apps (Mail, Reminders, Contacts, etc) or apps you installed some other way.

Carlos Ramos

Hello Gary, I have an iMac from 2013 and I am limited to the last OS upgrade (Catalina, 10.15.7). Sometimes I wonder if my machine is becoming vulnerable, especially lately, when it slows down at times. It's a pity if I have to get rid of a good machine. Thank you for your reply.

Carlos: Apple is still releasing security updates for Catalina and will probably do that for another year now or so.

Beatrice Stevens

How do I delete an app which is not a Mac App?

Beatrice: See https://macmost.com/how-to-uninstall-apps-on-your-mac.html

Comments Closed.

The Practical Guide To Mac Security: Part 10, Three Rules To Protect Your Mac

Comments: 7 Responses to “The Practical Guide To Mac Security: Part 10, Three Rules To Protect Your Mac”

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