How to set up your new Mac (part 1: security basics)

So you’ve decided to get Mac, maybe you were attracted to the hardware design or because you heard good things about OS X — regardless of the reason you’ve now got yourself a shiny new machine and want to start playing right away! Excellent choice, but like anything it’s better to take a breath before you go nuts and start browsing + installing random things immediately. Keep reading below for tips on how to build yourself a solid foundation for many years of worry free Mac computing.

Firstly you want to be in a position to secure your data, especially if it’s a portable that can easily be stolen such as a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. In case the Mac is lost or stolen, would you be comfortable with some petty criminal or worse looking through your personal photos, files and emails? Of course not, so before you do anything else like even connect to wifi, set a secure password for your user account (tip: something memorable to you, hard to guess, at least 12 characters — including uppercase, lowercase, numbers and punctuation — also something you do not use for any other online service, you can find tips on password security here: http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/internet/how-safe-is-your-password-essential-advice-on-keeping-your-personal-accounts-secure-11363900232130 or just search Google :]) and then enable File Vault. File Vault is built into OS X and secures the data on your disk by encrypting it’s contents automatically. Basically it’s set and forget. Here’s how to turn it on:

1. From the Apple menu (top left corner of your screen), choose System Preferences.

2. Click the Security & Privacy icon in the System Preferences window.

3. Click the FileVault tab.

4. Click the lock icon and enter an administrator name and password. (this is typically what you entered when you first turned on your new machine)

5. Click the “Turn On FileVault” button and follow the prompts.

Secondly, you’ll want to enable the built in OS X Firewall. This will prevent unauthorized apps, programs and services from accepting incoming network connections and potentially harming your privacy. Here’s how you turn on the OS X Firewall, straight from the horses mouth at the Apple.com site.

Thirdly, install all OS X updates and patches from Apple. OS X has a reputation as being more secure than other platforms. This is debatable nowadays and really depends on which metrics you use to compare — as you know, people can come up with statistics to prove anything… :)

Install updates by:

1. Open the App Store app on your Mac.
2. Click Updates in the toolbar.
3. Usually there will be an “OS X combined” entry and possibly some Safari and iTunes updates available, regardless of what comes up click “Update All” to install all available updates. You may need to restart your Mac during this process. We recommend that you do not browse the web or do anything else until all the updates are installed.

Next, install a security conscious browser. My personal recommendation is Chrome, which when set up correctly is by far the most secure of the popular browser choices. Here’s how to get started with Chrome:

1. Open Safari (you’re already probably reading this using your Mac’s browser so instructions on how to do that here would be redundant!)
2. Go to https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/index.html and click the “Download Chrome” button.
3. Once the DMG (DMG is an Apple Disk Image file, and is the main format used to distribute Mac apps and other software) file is downloaded, open it and drag the Chrome icon to your Applications (there’s a link to in inside the DMG).
4. Drag the Google Chrome “disk” from your desktop to the trash icon on the bottom right of your Mac desktop to eject it.
5. Delete the Chrome dmg file from your downloads folder by dragging it to the trash also. Your downloads folder is usually accessible from the dock and right next to the trash icon.
6. Open Chrome from your Applications folder; you might be prompted to set it as your default browser — this is recommended.
7. Chrome will then prompt you to sign into your Google account; we do not recommend you do this.

Set some security focused preferences in your Chrome install by:

1. Open Chrome preferences from the Chrome menubar, or use the system-wide preferences keyboard shortcut combo which is [⌘] + [,]
2. Scroll down and click the “Show advanced settings…” link
3. Under “Privacy” click “Content Settings…” and adjust your settings to match those of the screenshot below:

Security focused Chrome content settings

4. Click “Done”

Ok awesome, so now you’ve got a good foundation to begin securely enjoying your new Mac! While you’re still a newbie you should only install applications from the Mac App Store as each one is reviewed by Apple and checked for issues before being approved for distribution.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this series — also feel free to contact me via comments, Facebook or Twitter if you have any questions or suggestions for future articles.

Have a good one and enjoy your new Mac!