Sunday, May 29, 2011

NSA's Guide to Securing Your PC

NSA The U.S. government's National Security Agency has released some surprisingly useful guides for securing your desktop Mac or PC. Terminal For Mac users, the NSA supplies "Hardening Tips" for caging OS X 10.5 Leopard and OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, which could could come in handy amidst reports of a rogue antimalware Trojan currently spreading on Mac systems.
We've posted our ten favorite quick-fixes, including shuttering Location Services (familiar ground for iPhone users), hushing up IPv6 wherever you can, and using the OS X Terminal to identify and kill unnecessary processes. Add a healthy dose of Antivirus to the mix, and you'll have your Leopard collared.
With the exception of enterprise administrators, PC users will find that the NSA's documents highlight key security technologies bundled with Windows 7, many of which are easy to overlook.
Bitlocker In addition to a bi-directional, public-private network firewall, Win7 customers can set User Account Control (UAX) notifications to "Always Notify" to retain security with fewer prompts. Updating to Internet Explorer 9 will equip you with the latest anti-phishing tech, Data Execution Protection (DEP), and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) to help protect your web browser against malicious code. And with BitLocker To Go you can encrypt data on all of your removable devices.
For more on Sun Solaris, Linux, and the full locked box of security documents, check out the NSA website.

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