Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. This is Part 10 of my course The Practical Guide
to Mac Security. This course is completely free thanks to my great Patreon supporters.
Go to MacMost.com/patreon to find out how you can join us.
So now we get to a lesson that is really at the heart of this course. It's how to keep your Mac
safe from malware. In the last lesson I mentioned that you don't need anti-virus software. But you
do need to take care and follow some rules. These are those rules. So whether you call it malware,
whether you call them viruses or just something that gets on your computer that you don't want
there that's going to compromise your security. Here's how you prevent that from happening.
The first rule is keep your Mac up-to-date. This should be a fairly simple one. macOS auto updates,
just make sure that's turned on. Make sure that you are using the latest version of macOS
that your Mac allows. If you have an older Mac you may not be able to use the absolute latest
one but keep it as up to date as possible. In addition to major updates like Mojave, Catalina,
and all the way up to Monterey you also have minor updates. Things like 11.1, 11.2, that
kind of thing. There are even smaller updates, security updates. Make sure you have all that
turned on so that you have the latest operating system. That's true for all your Apple devices.
In addition also make sure that your software is up-to-date. Using out of date software
could lead to vulnerabilities. So by software I mean mostly your apps. You may think that, well
this app doesn't do anything that could possibly be a problem with security. Well that's not true.
Apps are built on top of software libraries. Software libraries contain lots and lots of
code. They regularly receive updates to those libraries and the apps you use then use those
libraries. So even a minor update to an app could, deep down there, have some sort of
security fix for opening a certain type of file or accessing something online. So you want to
make sure all your apps, as well as your operating system is up to date and anything
else that is software on your Mac. So extensions, extensions for Safari, extensions for the system.
Any kind of plug-ins for any software you've got, anything, make sure it's always kept up-to-date.
To keep your Mac up to date all you need to do is, in the Apple Menu, go to System Preferences,
and from there look for Software Update. This will check for an update automatically. Make
sure you have Automatically Keep My Mac Up to Date here. Under Advanced you should have all
these checked. Check for Updates, Download new updates when available, Install macOS updates,
Install app updates from the App Store, and Install System Data Files and Security Updates.
Very important. So if you have all those checked your Mac will automatically be kept up to date.
In the App Store, when you're in here you can go to Updates and it will show
you if there are any app updates. But if you have it set to Automatic then
you should rarely ever see anything in here unless there's been a very recent update.
The 2nd Rule is always download from sites you trust. Now if you only use the Mac App Store
then you're set. That is a site you should trust. Apple has security protocols in place. Developers
have to register their software. There are checks made and if there is any problem Apple can take
action against the developer or the software and it's a very safe place to download software.
However, if you need to download software from outside the Mac App Store then you should research
the apps thoroughly. So if it's an app you want to add first, of course, ask yourself do you really
need it. Whether it's worth a small security risk to get it. Can you do without it. Can you find
something in the Mac App Store that can do that instead. Make sure that the app is considered
to be safe. You could just do searches and read various things that people write on different
forums. A search will pretty quickly turn up if there is a problem and that app should be avoided.
If you are in doubt you can always ask an expert. If you're still in
doubt then you should probably go with not installing the software if at all possible.
Keep in mind when I say download from sites you trust I do mean sites literally. So it's not the
app so much as the site. For example, there may be an app out there, like say Adobe Photoshop.
Adobe Photoshop has been around for a long time and it is certainly from
a trusted company and it's a trusted app and should be no problem having that on your Mac.
However, if you go and download Adobe Photoshop from a site that is not Adobe then you can run
into trouble. It can say it's Adobe Photoshop and maybe it actually is a version of Adobe Photoshop
but it comes with some malware with it. So it's the site or service that you're downloading from
that you need to trust more than the app itself. There are sites out there that say that they are
repositories for software and you can download software from them. Never use those! Go to the
developers or publishers website to download software. Never go to a third party place.
Only the official site, the official location for that software is where you should download it.
The 3rd rule is simply to stay informed. Any major problem that's going to come up,
any security threat to Mac users will certainly be reported heavily in the news. So, just keep up to
date, follow MacMost, there are other news sites like Mac Rumors, whatever one you want to choose.
Most Mac news sites and technology sites would report on a problem. You don't have
to follow everyday but it's good to be up to date and not be totally in the dark and
have no idea what's going on if a major problem were to occur.
So there are the three rules. Just remember these.
Practice these and your Mac will stay malware free.