Mac security gets better — good news for Apple fans

Two former spooks met for a gourmet lunch on the side of an extinct volcano. Sounds interesting… and it was.

I was with Patrick Wardle, Director of R&D for synack.com. His company has taken an effective new approach to discovering network vulnerabilities for their clients.

We talked a bit about how the landscape of computer security has been changing. 2016 is shaping up to become the year of Ransomware. With a more Macs being used it is important to focus on ways to prevent their vulnerabilities from being exploited by the encryption-for-ransom crowd. Patrick has devoted a personal website https://objective-see.com to his utilities that increase Mac security. His tool “ransomwhere?” alarms on encryption by non-Apple software. Check out his other tools — but read the warning about security vs. convenience before enabling all the features in Patrick’s “Lockdown” tool.

It’s great to see a clever approach to tools. Could this become the SysInternals equivalent for Macs?