Over the last few days, I’ve reset my MacBook Pro to factory settings, installed a fresh copy of macOS, and did some hardening for improved security. Here are some of the resources I’ve used to do that.
Mainly, I followed Micheal Bazzell’s guide Extreme Privacy: macOS Devices, at least ~60% of it. It’s a very informative read, but implementing all of it is… well, extreme for my daily usage.
Then I’ve read some other guides I’ve found online:
- Hardening macOS - Ricard Bejarano
- Hardening macOS: The Basics
- macOS Catalina: Hardening quick tips | by Henry Lawrence
- GitHub - drduh/macOS-Security-and-Privacy-Guide: Guide to securing and improving privacy on macOS
- Privacy is sexy - Enforce privacy & security on macOS
Some important things to keep in mind:
- If you go ahead and read all these resources you’ll spot some very conflicting advice. Your philosophy and use cases, or as the cool kids say, threat model, will vary, so be warned.
- Some stuff will require you to mess deeply with your OS via Terminal. Be mindful of what you are about to do and steer clear of the things you do not fully understand, the penalty being some very erratic behavior from you computer, to say the least.
- Especially for the online guides (the Bazzell’s ebook is constantly updated), some advice might be out of date by now or might refer to old Intel-based machines. If you have a new Apple Silicon device, you should be mindful of that.
Happy tinkering!