June, 1988: The CyberAIDS and Festering HateApple ProDOS viruses spreads from underground pirate BBS systems and starts infecting mainstream networks. Festering Hate was the last iteration of the CyberAIDS series extending back to 1985 and 1986. Unlike the few Apple viruses that had come before which were essentially annoying, but did no damage, the Festering […]

If your computer were ever lost, you’d want the peace of mind that the data contained on it wouldn’t be recoverable by whoever stole or found it. Full-disk encryption is the best solution here. Both Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOS contain built-in utilities – BitLocker and FileVault, respectively – for encrypting all of your local […]

Desktop apps can consume a lot of power even when you’re not using them. Plus, they might be collecting considerable information and transmitting it to servers, or worse. To save electricity and reduce your exposure to harm, consider closing any program from your web browser to your conferencing app if you’re not currently using them.

If you use an iPhone or iPad, you now that the their OS receives frequent updates. It’s important to apply these as soon as possible to avoid security issues. When you see news about iOS updates, look in the Settings apps if an update is available. Also, major updates almost always occur in late September […]

The Messages app on any iPhone or Mac collects both your SMS texts and iMessage chats. For the latter, you can configure a setting that disables notifications for any iMessage from a phone number or email address that’s not already in your contacts list. That can filter out phishing scams and general message spam.

If you own an iPhone and/or Mac, you might enabled “Find My iPhone” or “Find My Mac” at some point. Although theoretically useful, these services can create major headaches if someone assembles just a few basic and often publicly available pieces of information, like your full name and last four digits of a credit card […]