Online banking on MAC, what security?

sleepymy

What do I need to make it safe?

macman

sleepymy wrote: »

What do I need to make it safe?

If using a wireless connection, make sure you are using WPA encryption. Otherwise nothing at all.
Most if not all of the online banking sites will work on Safari or Firefox, I use 3 of them without problems.
I run iAntiVirus on my Mac but it's never picked up anything yet...

sleepymy

Thanks macman

<general>
Does mac ever need spyware etc?

What Antivirus do people recommend?

Little_Chicken

I use a mac too - i think they're pretty unlikely to be targeted by dodgy scammers as most people use pcs.....I think generally they're supposed to be safer because of this.

aliEnRIK

Im no MAC expert. But I use the NOSCRIPT plugin for FIREFOX to prevent 'redirects' to bogus websites (That try to get you to give away passwords etc)
Wether or not it works (Or theres a version that works) on a MAC or not im really not sure

Millionaire

The only thing I use the standard software firewall provided with the OS and a outgoing connections monitor called Little Snitch.

Marty_J

iAntiVirus is a good free Mac AV app. It's light on system resources, so shouldn't slow your Mac down much. The general feeling is that there are so few threats to Macs that it's really not worth bothering with at the minute. Just stay away from dodgy websites, emails and downloads, and you'll probably be OK. Some however, feel that it's better to be safe than sorry, regardless of how small the risk is.

SecureMac is a good place for keeping up to speed with security issues affecting Macs, and they also have an anti-spyware app called MacScan (free trial available - $29.99 for a single user licence). As above though, it's debatable whether it's required or not.

I tried out NoScript for Firefox, and I personally found it a bit of a pain. It's an extra layer of security though I guess if using it doesn't bother you.

Moneymaker

sleepymy wrote: »

What do I need to make it safe?

Commonsense.

There aren't any Mac viruses in the wild, therefore no virus definitions. Without definitions, any "AV" software is fairly helpless because it doesn't know what it's looking for. All it can do is add naggs such as "Do you really really really want to install this application?"

Marty_J

Moneymaker wrote: »

Commonsense.

There aren't any Mac viruses in the wild, therefore no virus definitions. Without definitions, any "AV" software is fairly helpless because it doesn't know what it's looking for. All it can do is add naggs such as "Do you really really really want to install this application?"

This isn't true at all. There are a number of trojans and other nasties affecting Macs in the wild. Some of them, such as keyloggers, are of particular concern with regards to internet banking. Viruses aren't the only security threats there are.

Here's the threat database for iAntiVirus:

http://www.iantivirus.com/threats/

It's on the small side, but that doesn't mean the threats don't exist.