Improve and control security in your Macintosh-system workplace
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If you use a Mac, the 10.4 servers and above have iChat imbedded in them.
Clients with jabber capabilities have services provided by jabber protocols.
Your mobile employees can send plaintext and audiovisual files, as well as chat
and otherwise talk to each other with the Open Server Directory of OS X. The
process is made easy with the Admin Server app in X. Same with the ability to
encrypt IM traffic with a 'self-signed certificate' or a provider such as
GoDaddy or Verisign.
OS Server has local management cabability for groups and profiles. The
Sysadmin can prevent certain web sites from being seen, or simply putting forth
a complete list of web sites which employees are able to access. Postini can be
used in conjunction with the management policies of OS X to keep forbidden
content out of the workplace.
A small business must be sure to have encrypted security in place. Mac OS X
provides this level of encrypted security at each step in the experience of the
user.
To keep your data secure, use File Vault to encrypt the entire folder and
generate a disk image for the system. There are inexpensive or free certificates
available for an indiviudal, available at web sites such as thawte.com. The
AES-128bit security is protected by password. For 'self-signiature' and commerce
certificates, try Entourage and Applemail. Employees are able to send e-mail
between themselves using these applications as well. For a simple and powerful
way to store e-mail, Keychain assistant is to keep all your highly-sensitive web
site credentials away in a high-security area within the system. OS X creates a
key for every user who logs on, and locks automatically upon logout. Users can
store their e-mail password list here with confidence. Currently Apple lets the
user visually determine the security rating of a password as it is being typed
in, live.
Lastly, Keychain assistant offers a simple and powerful way to automatically
store email web site credentials in a highly-secure encryped area in the system.
OS X can generate a keychain for each user who logs in, set to auto-lock upon
logout while permitting the accessor to store passwords and other sensitive data
securely. Assistance is available from Apple, who lets users evaluate the
security of a password with a color-coded guage. Manual extension of the
Keychain assistant is also possible through the addition of several keychains
allocated to the safe storage of passwords of a certain type.
Most likely you get loads of email, maybe even files which are stored
locally. The average user might be confused in searching for an individual file.
OS X 10.4 users get the Spotlight application included - however, experience
using Google Desktop or Windows Vista is helpful prerequisite knowledge. Users
can locate Spotlight by content, file name or type. Even meta-data, too. One can
even add valuable plug-ins or other X downloads to the system. See:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/downloads/.
About the Author
Nick Pegley is VP of Marketing at All Covered Inc, the only nationwide
information technology (IT) services company focused solely on enabling the
success of small businesses. Serving thousands of firms across every industry,
the company helps clients achieve their business objectives by lowering the cost
and maximizing the performance of their IT systems. For more information visit
www.allcovered.com.
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Article Published/Sorted/Amended on Scopulus 2008-01-07 21:01:11 in Computer Articles
