How Do I set Up Security Settings?

mab


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Not sure if this is in the correct forum, but....

I have a new Mac Book and am new to macs in general. I am connected to the internet through my wireless home network, which does have a firewall. However, I travel frequently and will be connecting from many different places. How do I set up the firewall on my mac, and will this provide enough security? Also, although I understand viruses don't affect macs, how I do prevent 'carrying' them back to my home network and infecting my pc?

Thanks,
Mark
 
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Common security practices for macs,....

Use open firmware password protection to prevent booting to other sources.

Turning on the firewall in System Preferences>Sharing

Using lock screen feature from Keychain Access

Turning off auto login

As far as Anti Virus, ClamX is free and easy to use. Since Macs don't get viruses they can't spread themselves to PC's on thier own. However forwarding them through email might cause problems. Common sense will prevail in this situation.
 
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System Preferences>Sharing, click on Firewall then click on Start if your firewall is not turned on yet. Click Advance and tick the options you want to apply.
 
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would you consider it unreasonably risky to not turn on the firewall when connected to the home LAN (wireless, WPA2 protected behind a Westell 6100 and an Airport Extreme)? When the firewall is on, I have a lot of trouble with Age of Empires and SyncTogether (even specifying ports, which I don't completely understand, but do what the manuals say). Everything works fine with the firewalls down. Hence my question of just how risky this is.
 
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Not terribly,...mine's off.
 
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System Preferences>Sharing, click on Firewall then click on Start if your firewall is not turned on yet. Click Advance and tick the options you want to apply.
new on the forum and still getting to know the mac (it's an old one but did some upgrades and it's doing great, nice), so could use any and all help. to understand the settings to activate the firewall, the boxes without a check and in start mode means their on. and in go advance, it's the opposite, the boxes that are checked are the ones activated.
 

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