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6 min readAs director of security and compliance at Neural Payments, David Patrick knows he can’t be complacent about the Apple endpoints in his care. “Previously, we could just say, ‘It's an Apple device, there is no malware.’ That just isn't sufficient anymore.”
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7 min readAs an Apple admin, setting up new devices for end users became trickier in the last couple of years. With so many employees suddenly working outside the office, the workflows for equipping them with Apple devices needed to adapt. Personally handing a Mac to each new team member on their first day was no longer always feasible. That's why zero-touch deployments have become more important than ever.
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8 min readShell scripts are indispensable for managing Mac computers. That makes shell scripting a vital skill for Mac admins. If you're one of them, chances are you already know at least the rudiments of scripting. But for many admins, it doesn’t go much beyond that: They might know enough to copy and paste someone else’s script from StackOverflow, make a few tweaks to it, then cross their fingers and hope it works. But no matter their level of scripting expertise, they can always learn more.
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7 min readMac malware has been around as long as the Mac itself. But historically, the problem received little attention from Apple and its customers. That neglect was largely benign because, while Mac malware did exist, it remained relatively rare. The examples that did proliferate tended not to carry the same risks as their Windows counterparts; more often, they were proofs of concept rather than genuine dangers.
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5 min readWhen more companies began letting their employees work from home a few years ago, device security and productivity became more important than ever for IT. Beyond just figuring out how to make sure remote team members could get their work done, admins needed to guard company data against the unique security risks posed by this new work environment.
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6 min readThe IT world loves its three-letter acronyms. As part of that world, Apple device management is no different. If you deploy and manage fleets of Mac computers and iPhone or iPad devices for an organization, you’ve no doubt heard plenty of them. In particular, if you’ve spent any time researching ways to manage devices in your organization, you may have seen references to:
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11 min readApple Business Manager is a critical tool for anyone who manages Apple devices. It provides a critical link between your Apple device management solution and your devices, enabling things like Automated Device Enrollment (ADE). Add in its utility in distributing apps and other content at scale and other content and its ability to federate with user directories, and Apple Business Manager clearly becomes essential for any Mac admin.
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7 min readManaged Apple Accounts are Apple Accounts (formerly Apple IDs) that your organization owns, controls, and assigns to users. Like any Apple Account, Managed Apple Accounts can be used to sign in to devices and services.
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6 min readBack in the day, organizational security was built around the idea of a firewall: The security system blocked access to resources within the organization from external bad actors. Originally, that paradigm was literal: You established a perimeter and kept people from outside the building from accessing the network—and the resources attached to it—inside.
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5 min readSecuring sensitive company data is one of the top priorities for any IT department. For businesses that run on Apple, FileVault is an essential tool for Mac security. By encrypting all of the information on a Mac computer’s startup disk, FileVault makes company information unreadable to unauthorized users.
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7 min readWhen it comes to Mac malware, IT and security staff are well aware of the most common infection vectors: malicious emails or attachments, Trojanized applications, or attackers leveraging both known and unknown exploits. Apple consistently retools each version of its operating system to include better intrinsic defenses against such threats.
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8 min readAlthough Apple designs security into its hardware, software, and services, Apple devices are not immune to malware and unwanted software installation. According to Malwarebytes’ 2022 Threat Review, the vast majority of malware detections on Apple platforms are—in most cases—fairly harmless; however, the growth of mercenary spyware places specific, targeted individuals within key industries at risk.
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5 min readIt’s one thing for a Mac admin to distribute apps to users. It’s another thing to make sure those apps stay up to date.
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8 min readDistributing and managing apps is one of a Mac admin’s core responsibilities. Apple makes this relatively easy for some apps, thanks to Apple Business Manager's Apps and Books feature. Unfortunately, not every business app an admin might want to make available to users is available that way. In this guide, we’ll provide an overview of how to distribute Mac software—with or without Apple Business Manager.
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6 min readBack in 2019, at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple announced some major changes to the way software developers would be able to interact with macOS. Specifically, the company said that kernel extensions (kexts) would be deprecated in favor of system extensions. That transition is still playing out, even now. Here’s what Mac admins should know about it and how they can use that knowledge to make life smoother for themselves and their users.
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