Mac Security: Protecting Virtual Memory

May 22nd, 2007 at 3:00 PM - Tips by Jeff Gamet

Your Mac is pretty secure out of the box, but there are several things you can do to help make it even safer. One potential weak point in your Macis armor is virtual memory. Should a bad guy get ahold of your Mac, there is a possibility that he could recover data from virtual memory that you would rather keep secret - but thatis easy to fix.

Hereis how to lock down your Macis virtual memory:

• Launch System Preferences. You can find it by choosing Apple menu > System Preferences.
• Now select the Security Preference Pane.
• Check Use secure virtual memory.
• Restart your Mac.

Virtual memory allows your Mac to use more memory than it really has by writing some of the information it is using back to your hard drive. If someone gets ahold of your Mac or its hard drive, and they know what they are doing, they could manage to recover data from your virtual memory. Using secure virtual memory encrypts the data that gets written to your hard drive as virtual memory, protecting it from prying eyes.

The downside? Slower Macs may see a small performance hit by using secure virtual memory.

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