Seven Expert Tips for Staying Secure

You can protect your Mac even without additional security software. Five experts share their favorite methods.

Peter James

Global Spokesperson for Intego

» ”People need to back up their data regularly. Let’s assume you do get hit with malware and you’re not protected. At least if you have a backup, you can get your files back and maybe even your whole system.…Think of all those family pictures, all that music you bought…all this stuff that’s going to disappear if something happens.”

Mike Romo

Mac Product Manager for Symantec

» ”Make sure that your email password is secure. I recommend using the password generator in Keychain in the Utilities folder. You can generate a stronger password. I actually lock down my account information in Keychain Access as well. You can make these secure notes that you can password-protect, which is one way of keeping track of all this stuff.”

» ”Every bank I’ve ever seen, I’ve gotten phishing emails from. You’ve gotta surf skeptically, especially when you’re getting emails that deal with money.”

Charlie Miller

Principal Analyst for Independent Security Evaluators

» ”When the [Software Update] dialog pops up and says there are updates available, make sure you install them right away. The longer you wait, the worse off you are.”

» ”You can’t really trust your emails entirely. If you get an email and you think it’s from your bank or something and it says to log in to your account, instead of clicking on whatever link they provided, the smarter thing to do is just to go to your bank’s website the way you always go and log in that way.”

» ”Try to always download [software] from the actual vendor. Instead of Googling for it and clicking on the first thing you see from some file-sharing website or something, it’s smarter to go to the vendor’s website and download it from there.”

David Klenske

Director of Consumer Product Marketing for McAfee

» ”[Watch] the amount you share on social networks. Social networks are a great way for [criminals] to get access to you and your data and your information, potentially leading to identity theft. Being careful about what you post online is really critical.”