There are several ways to lock down your Mac, in order to prevent third-parties from either accessing your data, or using your system for purposes you do not intend. Since your Mac consists of several layers of hardware and software, each can be secured with a password; however, there are times when you may have forgotten your password. In these instances, you will likely be locked out; however, in most cases you should be able to recover your system. Continue reading
Tag Archives: password
Can’t remember passwords? Here are two ways to reveal them.
If you’re browsing the Web and need to either create a new account or log into an existing one, then you will likely need to enter your password. To help with this, OS X will prompt you to store your password in the OS X keychain, which will encrypt and assign the password to the site you have just accessed. This is similarly applied to programs you may use, such as e-mail clients, which will attempt to access secured resources like your e-mail accounts or social media pages. However, the convenience this provides may result in your inability to remember your passwords, even for sites you regularly frequent. Continue reading
Manage OS X always asking to use your keychain passwords
The keychain in OS X should run seamlessly in the background to store and retrieve passwords for the various services you use. At most it should ask you for a password once or twice when you initially access a service, but there may be times when you regularly see messages pop up on your Mac that indicate a certain program or service is trying to access your keychain. When this happens, a dialogue box will appear with the words “PROGRAM_NAME wants to use the ‘login’ keychain’ with an option to supply your password and confirm or deny the request. Continue reading
Protect your Mac from a password-revealing security flaw
A security issue exists in OS X where if you are logged into your Mac, any individual may sit down at your system and gain access to the passwords in your keychain.
When you save passwords to your keychain in OS X, your Mac will automatically allow access to them for specific services, such as Mail for logging into your e-mail accounts. However, other services that access them will be required to authenticate before they have access to the password, especially those that will reveal your password in plain text. Continue reading
9 password manager recommendations for OS X and iOS
Following today’s release of the top 25 worst passwords used in 2014, if the passwords you use are among them, or if you are using your same password over and over for your various online services, then you might consider the use of a password manager. These options allow you to create random and unique passwords for services outside of your computer (such as those on Web sites), and then securing them all with one master password. Continue reading
How to view your saved passwords in OS X
When you ever entered a password in a Web page, and then save it in your keychain, you may find yourself relying solely on autofill to enter this password at later times. While the use of autofill is convenient, in instances where you have come to rely on it, you may find yourself forgetting or not even knowing your password.
For instance, when creating an online account you might use Apple’s automatic password creator that creates a random Continue reading
How to secure and lock down your Mac
There are numerous ways that a thief can get into your Mac, including booting your system to another hard drive to bypass the security of the built-in operating system and access any file on disk, or simply booting to the OS X Recovery partition and using the password reset tools to change the password of an account on the system. While keychain information and other secured documents will be safe from such approaches, other non-secured files will still be accessible. Continue reading
Russian hackers arrested in possible ‘Oleg Pliss’ iOS ransom attack
The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the hackers responsible for the recent ransom attack on iOS users, may have been arrested in Russia.
The hackers, aged 17 and 23, were from the Southern Administrative District of Moscow, and where apprehended when they were in the act of withdrawing stolen funds Continue reading
How to change or reset your password in OS X
The password on your Mac is the primary way you will secure and prevent unauthorized access to it. If you suspect your password is compromised, decide you wish to use a different one, or have forgotten it, then there are several approaches for changing it. These range from the use of the standard system preferences, to various approaches with the Terminal, and finally with use of the Recovery and Single User modes on your Mac. Continue reading
Tips and tricks for securing your Mac
Securing your Mac and the online services you use revolves around layering your security options, so not only do you have your computing content secured by a proper password, but it is also properly packaged for security. In addition, how you configure your Mac can greatly affect how secure it is.
There are several easy approaches you can follow to ensure your Mac is as secure as possible, especially Continue reading