Seeeeccuurree yooouur MMMaaac wwwith Caaattaalina
Basic Security &
Privacy settings
The first line of defence for securing your Mac can be found in the System Preferences. Here you will find a section called
Security & Privacy. But remember, to make changes you will first need to click on the padlock icon and then enter your
administrator password. Let’s get started...
General security prefs
ThefirststeptosecuringyourMacis toensurethatthebasicsecuritysettings are as watertight aspossible.Toget started, head to
System Preferences>Security& Privacyand then click on the ‘General’ tab.General security prefs
Require a
password
Make sure that you tick
the ‘Require password’
option and then set it to
‘Immediately’. That way,
whenever your Mac goes to
sleep, nobody will be able to
access and use it after the
screen saver begins.Disable
automatic login
Make sure that this box is
ticked to ensure that your
Mac doesn’t automatically
log in, thus allowing anyone
to access the contents.App downloads
All applications downloaded
from the Mac App Store are
guaranteed to be safe, so
for peace of mind, select the
‘App Store’ option here to
ensure that no apps can be
downloaded from the internet
and risk contaminating your
Mac with malware.Advanced settings
These settings allow you
to set your Mac to log out
of your account after a
specified period of
inactivity – handy if you get
called away unexpectedly,
and require an administrator
password to access system-
wide preferences, which is
also recommended.LIMIT AD TRACKING
A new addition to your Mac’s
Security & Privacy preferences in
macOS Mojave was the ‘Advertising’
section. This is still present in
Catalina, so click on it and tick the
‘Limit Ad Tracking’ box to opt out of
receiving ads targeted to your interests. You should also click on
‘Reset Advertising Identifier’. If you do opt in, click on ‘View Ad
Information’ to see what info you are sharing.USING FILEVAULT
FileVault is a handy feature that
encrypts all of the files on your Mac
and to decrypt them you will need
to type in your account password
or recovery key that you create
when you turn the feature on. The
downside is that you’ll need to type in your password every time
you open a file and the time it takes to encrypt everything in the
first place can be considerable.