Mac Security 101
applemacpunk at cox dot net Copyright ©2006 Kale Feelhaver
Top 10 Mac Security Tools
By Kale Feelhaver aka Applemacpunk, December 2006
As a tribute to 2006, and to welcome 2007, I thought I’d do an article about my favorite Mac Security Tools, and tell a little about each one. These are the tools I use nearly every day to make sure my Mac and/or my other systems are secure. NOTE: Security tools can be used for good or evil. Please respect other people/systems and only use these tools for good things.
1. ClamXav ( http://clamxav.com )
ClamXav is the ClamAV open source virus scanner ported for Mac OS X. Free virus protection is hard to top.
2. SSH ( http://www.openssh.com/ )
A free utility that comes with Mac OS X. Use SSH to securely manage Linux/Unix/Mac servers on you local network, or even over the Internet.
3. KisMac ( http://kismac.de/ )
This handy little piece of freeware is great for sniffing wireless network traffic. This is the Mac OS X port of the popular Kismet wireless packet analyzer.
4. DoorStopX ( http://opendoor.com/doorstop/ )
A fully featured software firewall (shareware) for Mac OS X, it does everything the built-in firewall does and then some.
5. Nessus ( http://nessus.org )
The popular open source vulnerability scanner now has a Mac OS X client. Nessus is a favorite of security professionals worldwide as it is a great tool for checking servers for vulnerabilities. The Nessus team constantly updates the plugins so your scanning is always up to date.
6. TCPDump ( http://www.tcpdump.org )
A useful free command line utility included with Mac OS X. Simply run TCPDump from the command line to analyze packet information on your network.
7. John the Ripper ( http://www.openwall.com/john/ )
John the Ripper is a freeware password crack utility that has been ported to Mac OS X. This utility will allow you to crack passwords if the root or admin password is ever lost.
8. Paranoid Android ( http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/pa )
This little freeware application can be configured to warn you when malicious software tries to modify anything on your system.
9. Nmap ( http://insecure.org/nmap/index.html )
This is a lightweight open source command line vulnerability/port scanner. Nmap is a lot faster than more robust vulnerability scanners like Nessus.
10. MacScan ( http://macscan.securemac.com )
This is a shareware spyware/adware/kelogger scanner for Mac OS X. An easy way to find malware on your system.
