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The Checklist Podcast

SecureMac presents The Checklist. Each week, Ken Ray and guests hit security topics. From getting an old iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac, and other Apple gear ready to sell to the first steps to take to secure new hardware, each show contains a set of easy to follow steps meant to keep you safe from identity thieves, hackers, malware, and other digital downfalls. Check in each Thursday for a new Checklist!

The Checklist Podcast by SecureMac

Episode: Checklist 65: An Overview of the Mac’s Most Important Built-in Security Features

Checklist 65: An Overview of the Mac’s Most Important Built-in Security...

For this week’s show, we’re back to talking about the Mac — more specifically, addressing some of the most important security features baked directly into macOS. What steps has Apple taken to keep users safe, and what tools are there to make sure we’re all enjoying our Macs safely and securely? Perhaps you know someone who is about to get a new Mac, or maybe you’re even the one giving it as a gift for the holidays! Being able to learn about staying safe on a new machine is important. …

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Checklist 64: Safely Shopping for Technology This Holiday Season

The holiday shopping season has arrived again — and with this episode, we’re turning our attention to some security issues specific to this time of year. With Christmas coming up, you might be looking at all kinds of electronic gadgets for your friends and family. From tech-based toys to Internet of Things products, retailers have more web-connected devices available for us every year.

While it’s certainly a fun time of year, opening some of these gifts during the holidays could also mean opening up your loved ones to a …

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Checklist 63: Your Guide to Securing Your Parents’ Computer

During last week’s episode, our discussion centered around talking to your parents about the importance of computer security, and how to educate them on essential steps to take. This week, we’re going to move beyond the parents and look at their computers ourselves —with their permission of course! After your pep talk about strong passwords, you should hope to find their computer protected with a password you can’t guess.

While it’s easy enough to explain how to do things like create strong passwords and to run security software as …

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Checklist 62: Talking to Your Parents About Computer Security

Remember back when you were a kid, and someone sat you down to have “The Talk”? It might have been your parents, or it could have been a teacher, but we’ve all been through the experience of learning about “the birds and the bees.” It’s a pivotal moment, and learning about the facts of life can be, well, life-changing. It’s also essential for keeping you safe as you continue to grow up. Well, now you’re grown — you’re older and definitely a little wiser. It might be time to sit down with your parents and have your own version of The Talk with them.

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Checklist 61: App Stores, Malware, and How Security Firms Do Their Jobs

For years, people laboured under the misconceptions that Apple hardware and operating systems were immune to the threats and malware faced by the people who use Windows. While macOS may be stronger in some respects, what made the Mac the safest was the fact that relatively few people used it compared to Windows. But times have changed! For most of the past decade, growth for Apple machines has outpaced that of Windows machines. General consumers “saw the light” through the iPod and the iPhone and decided to give the …

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Checklist 60: Safety in the App Store

Our lives are on our computers and our phones: there’s no getting around that fact. One day, we might look back on that and view it as a mistake, but for now, our finances, health records, communications, family photos, videos, and more all live on these devices. Keeping that information safe is important, and there are several layers of complexity to that challenge. From password practices to two-factor authentication and even to merely protecting your screen from prying eyes, we’ve covered a lot of these tactics on this show. …

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Checklist 59: Bitcoin and the Blockchain: Understanding Cryptocurrency and Its...

Today, we’ll be tackling a couple of buzzwords in the tech industry today: blockchains and Bitcoins. Not unlike HTTPS and botnets, blockchain and Bitcoin are terms that are starting to seep into everyday use. Before we all start using them, though, we should figure out what they mean and how they work! In fact, the blockchain concept has even begun to garner its own “buzzword” status in the security community regarding how secure it can be for storing and accessing information. So, for all our listeners who aren’t even …

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Episode: Checklist 54: The Equifax Hack

Checklist 54: The Equifax Hack

The personal information of 143-million people may have been compromised when the consumer credit reporting agency Equifax was hacked. What do we know about the attack? And what can we do going forward?

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Episode: Checklist 50: Hacking Your Health

Checklist 50: Hacking Your Health

On today’s episode, we’re looking at the way technological change has affected modern medicine, threats the healthcare industry faces, and what we can do to protect patient safety now and in the future.

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Episode: Checklist 49: Artificial Intelligence and Security

Checklist 49: Artificial Intelligence and Security

The rise of artificial intelligence in the consumer space seems to have happened overnight. It feels like we’ve gone from Apple’s introduction of Siri to virtual assistants everywhere in the blink of an eye. On today’s episode, we’ll be covering some security concerns that accompany the rise of AI.

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Episode: Checklist 48: All About Spyware

Checklist 48: All About Spyware

On today’s episode we’ll be taking a look at spyware: what it does, where it comes from, and what you can do to defend against it.

Sometimes it’s pretty obvious when you’ve got a malware infection – ransomware lets you know that your files have been encrypted and are being held for ransom, while adware spawns endless popups in your web browser. Spyware operates a bit differently, and unlike other types of malware it prefers to remain hidden on an infected system. It might come as a surprise, but some spyware …

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Episode: Checklist 46: A Brief History of Malware

Checklist 46: A Brief History of Malware

On today’s Checklist, we’re cracking open the history books! We’ll be looking at the evolution of malware: from the early days of “joke” viruses to the serious threat it poses today.

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