The Flashback Trojan went viral last week, infecting an estimated 1 percent of OS X computers worldwide. While the infection rate has subsided since then, it doesn’t mean that there’s cause for panic, either. Here are some common sense, effective tips for safeguarding your Mac against more malware.
- Get a security suite – While the Windows suites have gotten significantly better, their Mac counterparts have never taken such a harsh collective toll on their host machines. We recommend BitDefender for Mac.
- Lockdown Admin privileges – Create a non-Admin account for daily use such as e-mail, browsing, and music and video watching. Jump over to Admin when its necessary.
- Stay on top of software updates – Make sure that you let Software Update do its job. Programs are rarely updated on a whim, so make sure that you’ve got the latest versions because they may contain security fixes.
- Ditch Adobe Reader if you can – If you must keep it around, make sure that it’s always updated to the latest version.
- Get rid of Java and Flash, too – Again, this may not apply to you, especially if you run a program like Adobe’s Creative Suite which (I’m fairly certain) relies on Java for some tasks.
- Take control of your passwords – As often as possible, use “strong” passwords. This means random multi-word passwords, separated by spaces.
Hope these tips will help you stay ahead of the bad guys.
Source: CNET News
