Macintosh security: Heightened threats, new products

Last year was a year for increased computer security consciousness among Mac users. According to security software provider Intego's annual report, Apple issued 35 security updates in 2008. While some potentially nasty vulnerabilities were discovered for Mac OS X, and for certain apps like Safari and Quicktime, all were patched quickly and no actual exploits made it to the wild.

Another notable threat last year was "scareware"—spam e-mails claiming your computer is in danger that offer a low-cost downloadable protective product, but one which simply scams you by tricking you into divulging confidential passwords.

E-mail scams can affect Mac users just as easily as Windows users. In fact, our 2008 State of the Net survey found that Mac users fall prey to phishing scams at about the same rate as Windows users, yet far fewer of them protect themselves with an anti-phishing toolbar (Ratings available to subscribers). As a result, we listed Mac users' laxity as one of our 7 Online Blunders for computer users to avoid.

But the biggest threat of all in 2008 was the SSL Certificate hack. Revealed a little over a week ago, the attack leverages a weakness in the algorithm used to sign SSL certificates that in turn tie authentic corporate identities to Web site addresses and encryption keys. The researchers, using 200 networked computers, were able to create an official-looking, but completely false, Certificate Authority (CA), one that then became trusted by browsers.

While admittedly difficult to achieve, the attack could potentially impersonate any secure Web site, particularly banking and e-commerce, luring unsuspecting users to disclose passwords. Companies like Check Point Software Technologies are already rushing to get a fix available for their server and ISP customers.

Here are some of the consumer security products I came across at Macworld last week:

Child filtering. Intego announced a new product for parents called Content Barrier X5. It can block just about everything pre-teens and adolescents like to do on the web, including multi-player online gaming, peer-to-peer file sharing, and streaming video. And if that wasn't enough, it keeps logs, records screenshots and keystrokes, looks for predatory language in chat rooms, and provides remote monitoring and control—presumably even without the child's knowledge. Content Barrier X5 provides a lot of tools that, if used judiciously, can help parents, but it will never replace good parenting and communication.

Password manager. In the realm of "I have too many logins and passwords to remember them all" category, both 1Password, a desktop product with integrated browser plug-ins, and e-Wallet, designed specifically for the iPhone, protect as much vital information as you want to enter in a protected space, accessible with only a single strong password.

Fingerprint reader. Since the first PC laptops were sold with built-in biometric (fingerprint) security, I've been waiting to see when this would arrive for the Mac. Eikon and Eikon To Go digital privacy managers let you access your computer by swiping a finger rather than entering a password. According to Senior Marketing Manager Brian DeGonia, the Eikon captures over 50 unique identifying markers from the users fingerprint (the FBI, he said, demands only a minimum of 8 to make a match).

—Thomas A. Olson