How secure is the Mac...really?

[louisa]

Today, I was on another forum and I signed out of it. My friend, who runs the site, noted that I was stil online as a guest and that he could "ping, echo, and tracert" and also get a direct conncetion. He said that a hacker could get into my computer and wreck things.

So, what's going on? Is the Mac as secure as it's advertised?

 

[rman]

For someone to break in a system, they would need to know something about your system. Secondly, you as a user of an Apple product would have to make some changes in your system such that you would leave certain doors open. Most of these doors are closed by default.

A operating system is only as secure as you make it. The most secure system is the one that is still in the shipping box.

 

[rman]

If you are behind a firewall you shoud be in good shape.

 

[rman]

Another little note: On my job I received about 10 to 15 security alerts a day on the average. The majority of the alerts are either for M$ or some favor of linux.

 

[MoltenLava]

Of course anyone can ping/echo/traceroute to your machine. You are on internet where anyone can connnect to everyone. ping/echo/traceroute itself is not harmful. As long as your system has good security policy, you are in a good shape.

 

[witeshark]

Today, I was on another forum and I signed out of it. My friend, who runs the site, noted that I was stil online as a guest and that he

Simple trick, seeing your IP and waiting until you log off, then posting that crap. It's called a Troll