Better Safe than Sorry PART 2 – Worms, Viruses and Hackers (Oh My!) – Dr Mac

By Bob LeVitus

…. continued from part 1

Most Macs aren’t affected by the latest parasitic outbreaks in the news (Nimda, Code Red, etc.). But while Mac-specific viruses and worms are rare, the most definitely do still exist. Which is why smart Mac users know if they’re at risk and if they are, they take precautions.

Are you at risk? There are three main groups at risk:
The first is anyone who uses any type of writable or rewritable, mountable media: Disk (floppy, Zip, SuperDisk), cartridge (Jaz, Orb, magneto-optical), burnable optical media (CD-R, CD-RW, …

Startup Security Mac OS and Mac OS X Open Firmware Password Configuration Utility

Information About Startup Security 1.1 for Mac OS 9 & Mac OS X

In case you do not know, your Macintosh may be able to have extra password protection offering you a extra touch of security if you are using Open Firmware 4.1.7 or higher running Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X.

What is Open Firmware Password Protection?

We have a whole discussion on Open Firmware Password protection here. In short it would be compared to the PC’s BIOS password where it asks you for password on startup or while trying to …

SKS The Shift Key Suite – Disable Shift Key During Startup

Information

SKS or The Shift Key Suite 1.0.6 is an extension for your Macintosh to stop users from being able to hold down the shift key during startup to disable the extensions.

“Holding down the Shift key while booting your Macintosh prevents all extensions to load – an important feature when you have start-up crashes from incompatible extensions.”

Many Macintosh computers have simple security programs setup that are supposed to keep users out, if you do not see options in the preferences to disable the shift key during startup the user may be …

Firewall Security: The Shareware Method

Broadband Internet technology, with its rapidly increasing availability and affordability, has generated a need to secure personal computers in a way never conceived by its original inventors. Constantly connected PC’s are more prone to malicious attempts by the rising amount of computer hackers and “script kiddies”. To defend ourselves without busting our wallets, several software vendors have stepped up to the plate to offer software-based firewall solutions to protect the average PC user from most attacks prevalent today.

Computers on dedicated connections are more open to Internet-based attacks because they are …

Mac OS X nidump Security Issues (macosx)

What is nidump?

nidump reads the specified NetInfo domain and dumps a por-
tion of its contents to standard output. When a flat-file
administration file format is specified, nidump provides
output using the syntax of the corresponding flat file.
The allowed values for format are aliases, bootparams,
bootptab, exports, fstab, group, hosts, networks, passwd,
printcap, protocols, rpc, and services.

If the -r option is used, the first argument is inter-
preted as a NetInfo directory path, and its contents are
dumped in a generic NetInfo format.

If the -r option is used, the first argument is inter-
preted as a NetInfo directory …

Monitorer – Macintosh KeyStroke Key Logger Log Keystrokes

Information

Monitorer is a extension to record keystrokes as they are typed. Monitorer records everything you type with your keyboard and saves it. That can be very useful if you just wrote a very long text and your computer crashes. After restarting you will find the saved log-file in your preferences folder where you can copy your lost text! This application can also be used to check if any unauthorized person used your computer or you use it to view what your employees “produced” the whole day.

However Keystroke loggers were originally …

Security-Ware – Physical Security for your Macintosh. Keep your Hardware secure

We all realize security is a issue for our computers, but how secure can your password and encrypted files be when your computers have been stolen?

The San Diego, California based company, SecurityWare offers a wide variety of anti theft devices for your Macintosh computers and PC’s. After careful overview of the products we felt the Cable Security kits would be most use full to the general market!

SecurityWare’s iBook/iMac kits (with or without plate) makes it possible and affordable to secure your Mac. SecureMac travels from locations and our iBooks sometimes …

Disabling Single User Boot Mode for Mac OS X

Marukka, a programmer at MSEC (Macintosh Security Group) has created a modified version of the mach_init that will make it so Mac OS X does not have the ability to boot into single user mode.

The MSEC single-user patch disables the ability to boot into single-user mode under OS X. If this patch is not applied then anyone with physical access to the Mac OS X machine can gain root access easily by holding down the command and s keys at startup.

However, if you are not worried about someone having console …

StaticUsers.net – Modem Security Flaws

Information

A lot of this information was gathered from other sources on the Internet. This flaw is old. Just not well publicized. Now that it is, we can cover it a little more and explain why it happens, and what damage it can cause. This is a Denial of Service attack in most cases. There are a lot of scripts out there to execute this DoS attack. So watch out.
A excellent source for more information is the Macintouch ModemSecurity Page.

Views

This effects more than Macintosh Modems. Linux dialup users have seen this …

StaticUsers.net – Apple Powerbooks Security Control Panel

Information

All Apple Powerbook have the option of setting up a security control panel, making it so when you boot you must enter a password before it mounts the drive. Good security for a laptop!

Views

Good security for those LapTop Users. At lease this program can fool an idiot!

Insecurity

Security Breaches in the Password Security Control Panel: Owners of Powerbook have the option of using the Control Panel “Password Security”. With Password Security turned on the owner of the PowerBook can password-protect his/her computer. This involves a password dialog asking for a password …

Connections and Protections

Connections and Protections
Cable and DSL Connections and Security Measures
What type of connection do I have?

Two new remote access technologies are rapidly growing – cable modems and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) modems/routers. Cable Modems are a shared media. This means that you share a common wire with other people in your neighborhood (see figure one). As more people gain access, the more traffic that is generated over that single wire. Both telco and cable companies are constantly working to increase the amount of bandwidth and service area available to their customers. …

Mac OS X Security – Third lesson by Chevell@SecureMac.com

Macintosh OS X Security – Third Lesson

MAC OS X Now that we’ve covered the basics of computer security in general and an overview of Mac OS X security specifically, it is time to get a bit more in depth. Because some UNIX gurus and elite hackers now know Mac OS X better than most early-adopting Mac fans, caution needs to be taken above and beyond what has already been covered. This is because of the advanced capabilities of the new OS and the open source condition of many of the …