The Security Mentor

I just read a 29-page paper from antivrus firm Symantec about OS X security.

There are only a couple of points that matter to a home user. First, use an external firewall box, or at least turn on the system's firewall (off by default, for some reason, and not as good as an external box).

The other good point they made is that Mac users have gotten so used to installing cool software from random places that they may not be suspicious enough when bad guys begin to target them.

Apple is missing a few clever tricks that could make the innards of a system into barren ground for attackers. Right now Microsoft is ahead of them on that front.

UPDATE 11/22:

In fact, a bad security problem just got announced. It's possible for bad guys to create a damaged .DMG file which can take over your computer completely if you open it. And Safari will open it for you automatically. So, think twice about the trustworthiness of the places you download from, and for the moment turn off Safari's option to automatically open "safe" files.

UPDATE 12/1:

Or maybe not. Another researcher spent three days looking at the report and analyzing what the Mac was doing with the damaged .DMG. It's complicated, but the upshot seems to be that the operating system will complain bitterly, stop working, but not run off the rails in any security-related way.