Below are my current basic recommendations for protecting your data on your Mac, protecting your online accounts, and reducing the likelihood that you would fall for ever more sophisticated scams. I’ll update my recommendations over time so review this Tech Tip periodically. I expand on these security and privacy recommendations in an earlier Tech Tip.

Security is not solely achieved by installing a particular product or by signing up for some particular service or by configuring your Mac or iPhone in a particular way. Security can be partially achieved by doing these things, but a huge factor is your tech-savviness. In other words, you are often the weakest link in protecting your data and information. The bad guys know this. This is why most of the security-related questions that clients ask me are about bogus warnings in emails, bogus warnings in text messages, bogus warnings from websites or phone calls from scammers. Thus, a large component in security is personal education. However, even if you fall for a bogus email or text, if you have two factor authentication enabled on your accounts, then the bad guys shouldn’t be able to get into your account.

The focus of this Tech Tip is security, but security and privacy are intertwined. Security is about keeping out the bad guys. Privacy is about protecting (or “keeping in”) information about yourself. Thus, one goal of security is to keep your personal information private.

Secure Your Device – Mac, iPhone and iPad

1. Upgrade your Mac to the most current version of the Mac operating system (macOS) if possible. Apple reportedly pledges to fix all known security issues in the most recent version of macOS. They also fix some security issues in the 2 prior versions of macOS. Thus, at a minimum, one needs to be on one should be on one of the three most recent versions of the Mac operating system, macOS. The same is true for iPhones and iPads. Upgrade your iPhone to the most current version of iOS and upgrade your iPad to the most current version of iPadOS.
2. Backup your Mac on a daily basis. Backups allow us to help you recover for an accidentally deleted file, an overwritten file, or if your Mac were to get locked by ransomware. Backup your iPhone or iPad to iCloud.
3. Enable FileVault on both your Mac’s internal storage and your external backup drive(s). FileVault encrypts all of the data stored on a drive. This makes it infinitely harder for the bad guys to get to your data if your Mac or your backup drives are ever stolen. By default, every iPhone and iPad has the equivalent of FileVault enabled.
4. Install a good anti-virus or anti-malware application on your Mac such as Malwarebytes or BitDefender Anti-Virus for Mac or Intego VirusBarrier. Due to Apple’s operating system design for the iPhone and iPad, application developers can’t make an anti-virus app that can scan your iPhone or iPad. For iPhones and iPads, the best option I’ve seen is an application like iVerify Basic.

Secure Your Accounts

1. Use unique, long and random but memorable passwords on each of your online accounts.
2. Use a password manager like Apple’s Passwords or 1Password to store, secure and sync your account passwords. 
3. Enabled two factor authentication on all accounts that support it. 
4. Use passkeys on all websites that support it.
5. Setup permanent freezes with all 3 credit bureaus.
6. Create online accounts with the IRS and Social Security Administration.

Educate Yourself

1. Know how to identify bogus emails. These are commonly called phishing emails since the bad guys use them to fish for information from you.  
2. Don’t fall victim to bogus warnings on websites on either your Mac, iPhone or iPad.
3. Increase your street smarts and savviness by watching this video about the quality of AI-generated scams.
4. If your employer offers training on how to identify phishing emails take advantage of this option to learn.