Category Archives: OSX

Do Macs need Antivirus?. Yeah, they do!

MacbookProSo… you own an iMac.. maybe a Macbook Pro, or maybe you’re one of the lucky owners of a Mac Pro. You’ve been watching ads for the last ten years… you bought it all, and you feel safe just because it’s not a windows… right?.

Well… things are not the way they were a couple years ago. As Apple gained more and more marketshare, virus developers turned their eyes on our belived OSX system. Since Java virtual machine has been found to be buggy… several viruses that affected Mac have been caught in the wild.

What can we do?. Well.. there are a couple things you could do….

1. Enable Mac Gatekeeper

What is the Mac Gatekeeper?. Well, the concept is simple. We just close the door to malicious software, by only installing software from trusted sources. Ever wondered why there are no viruses for iPhone?. Well… it’s because iOS ecosystem is a walled garden. By enabling the Gatekeeper, you’d be replicating the same safe environment as iOS has.

In order to enable the GateKeeper, you need to go to “System Preferences >> Security & Privacy” (in Mountain Lion). You will get this screen:

Screen Shot 2013-01-23 at 11.36.08 PM

See where it says ‘Allow applications downloaded from’?. Make sure you check ‘Mac App Store’ (or Mac App Store + identified devs). ‘Anywhere’ is not recommended.

That way you’re computer will install software ONLY from trusted sources.

2. Install Mac Antivirus Software

Yes… installing an antivirus will impact, slightly, on your performance. But at the very least, you’ll get to feel safe again. It’s just a feeling, bear that in mind, always!.

What antivirus software can you use?. Well, you could try AVG for Mac (which is free!), ESET for Mac (paid, but one of the best), and Norton Antivirus for Mac.

3. Install a Firewall

One of the things that make me freak out the most… is not knowing what applications are openning connections with remote servers. So… if you’re paranoid like me, you could simply install a firewall, and validate, process by process, if they really need to access internet.

Hopefully, with this extra software you’ll be able to stay away from trouble. Again… hopefully!.

Running airmon-ng in mountain lion!

aircrack-ngFor those of you who have no clue what is all of this about, Aircrack-ng is a command line tool that allows you to bruteforce WEP and WPA wi-fi password protections.

WEP being the easiest protection to break, and WPA the hardest. The difference?. WEP can be broken in… two days, give or take (probably less than that), while WPA could take months… without results!. Personally, everytime i needed to break a WEP protection, i had to boot a linux system. If you’re like me, and you’d rather staying in OSX, this is juuuuust for you.

I don’t wanna forget about this, so i’m writing this short guide, right here!

  1. Install Macports.
  2. Install aircrack-ng:
    sudo port install aircrack-ng
  3. Install the latest Xcode, with the Command Line Tools.
  4. Create the following symlink:
    sudo ln -s /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport /usr/sbin/airport
  5. Figure out which channel you need to sniff:
    sudo airport -s
  6. Open up a terminal and type:
    sudo airport en1 sniff [CHANNEL]
  7. Open up a seecond terminal and type:
    aircrack-ng -1 -a 1 -b [TARGET_MAC_ADDRESS] [CAP_FILE]

Notes: the cap_file will be located in the /tmp/airportSniff*.cap.
Nice, right?

===========================
Update:

I’ve been having issues while trying to crack a WEP key. I had over 100k IV’s… without luck. So i’ve attepted to crack the key with the KoreK algorithm (coded in aircrack-ng). And guess what!! i got the key!!. If you ever have the same problem, try this:

aircrack-ng -K -a 1 -b [TARGET_MAC_ADDRESS] [CAP_FILE]

App Review: Reeder

I’ve tried several RSS Readers for Mac. Many of them are free… such as Google Reader, or Capuccino. But a couple weeks ago i sumbled upon Reeder. I dare to say… it’s the best RSS Reader you’ll be able to find, anywhere else.

Why is that?. Well, the UI is pretty awesome… take a look:

reeder

Reeder has several UI styles. Personally, i use the layout portraited above. You get your feed list on the left… the posts in the middle, and the actual post on the right.

Now here’s something interesting. If you click over a post, the app hides the Feed List, and automatically enhances the post itself. Reeder has also something super cool. It’s Gestures-Enabled, which means that you can just swipe to the left or right, and trigger several actions (of course, you can configure that).

Most important of all… you can connect Reeder to your Google Reader account, and that’s it, this guy is gonna keep everything in sync. You could run it across several OSX installations, and… everything will be in sync.

I know it ** might ** be a bit expensive, for a simple rss reader. But trust me, this ain’t no simple reader.. and i believe it’s totally worth it!.

Showing current folder in Terminal’s Title

This is a nice trick i’ve learnt not long ago. Nice, and useful. If you run OSX, and you’d like Terminal to display the current folder, in its title… to looks something like this:

TerminalTitle

All you need to do is to edit the .profile in your home directory, and type the following line:

export PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;[${PWD/$HOME/~}]\007"'

Nice, right?

Fixing ‘Show in Finder’

I’ve been dealing with an annoying glitch in OSX 10.8.2. For some reason, ‘show in finder’ breaks down… on its own.

The workaround is…

sudo killall -KILL appleeventsd

Let’s just hope a real fix shows up, sooner rather than later.