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A Brief Recap of Some of 2015’s Biggest Data Breaches

In a recent feature covering some of the biggest hacks and data breaches of 2015, ZDNet dropped a chilling statistic: “Almost every American has been affected by at least one data breach this year.” Indeed, it was the year of the data breach, a year…

SecureMac Launches MacScan 3, Giving Its Flagship Mac Anti-Malware Software a Complete Makeover

Designed exclusively for Mac OS X, and including full support for Apple’s latest release of OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), MacScan 3 provides protection against the continued growth of malware by offering advanced detection and removal of security and privacy threats. SecureMac, the leader in…

The First Things You Should Do after Getting a New Mac

So you’ve just purchased a new Mac computer, be it a laptop or a desktop, and you can’t wait to dive in and start moving all of your files and data over to the new machine. Before you do any of that, though, there are…

Steps for Cleaning Your Mac before Selling or Donating It

For the 2021 version of this guide, covering both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, click here. So you’ve decided to sell your old Mac, give it away to a friend or relative, or donate it to a school or nonprofit. Regardless of what you are…

MacKeeper Customer Data Exposed

Some 13 million customers of anti-virus software, MacKeeper, had their personal data exposed recently due to a major security oversight on the developer’s database. The customer data included full names, usernames, emails, hashes of passwords, phone numbers, IP addresses, system info and other personal information.

Safely Downloading from the Internet

If you are using a Mac (or any computer, for that matter), it’s a concrete fact that you are eventually going to download something from the Internet. Whether it’s a new app from the App Store, a piece of free software from a third-party source,…

Protecting Your Privacy in an Increasingly Connected World

These days, everything and everyone is connected. At work, we communicate as much via email as we do face-to-face. At home, our primary means of interacting with friends and acquaintances is through social media. Add the ever-expanding “Internet of Things,” which connects everyday objects and…

How Thinking Machines Can Change Our Future

With many of the “predictions” laid forth in futuristic films like Back to the Future and Minority Report coming true, it’s easy to feel like we are at a peak or plateau of the technological revolution in our society. However, while smartphones, social media, streaming…

What is Malware?

Malware is a generic term, referring to any program that can threaten the security of your computer. There are many different types of malware, including Trojan horses, keystroke loggers, hack tools, ransomware, spyware, and worms. Sometimes, these are combined to form ‘hybrid malware’, showing characteristics…

Newly Discovered OS X Security Flaw Could Give Hackers an Easy Way to Take Control of Your System

If you by chance haven’t updated to Mac OS X 10.10 just yet (e.g., the Yosemite operating system update that first became available in October 2014), then you may want to hold off. According to a recent blog post by cyber security researcher Stefan Esser,…

Apple vs. Android: Who Wins in the Security Battle?

In a recent opinion piece for The Guardian, writer and technology professor John Naughton wrote about the ongoing war between Apple and Android for total dominance of the smartphone marketplace. The piece, titled “Security is the loser in the holy war between Android and Apple,”…

Why Protecting Your Child’s Identity Online Is Important

Parents raising kids today are at a disadvantage. Thanks to the internet and the advent of countless other digital and networking technologies, modern parents have to deal with challenges and dangers that their parents never had to deal with. Worse, many of these dangers are…

Apple Boots Apps for Violating Privacy Policies

The Mac App Store recently booted 256 apps for violating store-wide privacy policies. According to a report from Tech Republic, Apple pulled the apps for their use of a “Chinese advertising software development kit.” Said another way, these apps were built in such a way…

Monitoring Your Children Online

Modern parents face at least one challenge that their parents probably never had to deal with: the Internet. Kids these days spend a lot of their time online—whether researching for school assignments, playing games, or chatting with friends on social media—and all of this time…

Welcome to the new face of security

SecureMac News, Reviews & Advisories We’ve migrated our news and advisories into a dedicated area on SecureMac. Now you can quickly access the latest news from anywhere on our site by clicking the ‘news’ button at the top of the screen.  At a glance, you…

Apple Faces Class Action Lawsuit for “Wi-Fi Assist” Feature

Did Apple make a grievous error with the design of its most recent mobile device operating system, iOS 9? After launching iOS 9 in September, alongside the release of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, Apple quickly came under fire for a feature called “Wi-Fi…

How to Select a Strong Password (and Password Manager App)

Let’s just call a spade a spade: passwords are among the most irritating things about living in the digital age. Trying to remember even one or two passwords—let alone a different password for every device, site, and service that you use, as is usually recommended—can…

Apple Updates to Patch Security Flaws for iOS and OS X

Apple’s latest mobile and desktop operating systems, iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, launched in the second half of September. As of October 22nd, Apple has released updates for both operating systems to patch notable security flaws. The updates, iOS 9.1 and OS X…

Creating Password Protected Disk Images on Mac

Creating a disk image is a method often used for system backup, and can essentially clone your hard drive by copying the contents and structure of the disk and saving them exactly as they are on your computer. Using Mac’s Disk Utility, you can create…