5 ways to protect your Mac from Windows

Disable global access in your Parallels virtual machine

Recently there was some discussion spawned by a Washington Post article that opined ParallelsClick here to purchase was putting Mac users and their data at risk by allowing global access to the Mac filesystem by default. In short, yes, that's true (the larger issue was Windows vulnerabilities, but the Parallels point is valid from a certain viewpoint).

The issue is/was that when you opened Shared Folders from within Windows, you cold see the entire OS X filesystem, including Users, System, Library and Applications. Any not-so-clever Windows 'hacker' could easily write a virus to wipe those folders clean.

Within just a few days, Parallels released an update to their bleeding edge 'Release Candidate' versions of the Mac Desktop, which has global sharing turned off by default. However, in the current non-beta version (build 1970), it is still enabled out of the box.

It is highly recommended that you uncheck the appropriate box (in Parallels, click 'Edit/Virtual Machine/Shared Folders' and uncheck the 'global access' box) and allow any Windows installation currently running in your virtual machine to only have access to a specific shared folder on your Mac. This is an easy fix, and it will certainly keep your Mac filesystem safe and secure.

And finally...last but by NO means least:

Use protection!

Regardless of which option you choose, and no matter if you use Windows via BootCamp or a virtual machine, ALWAYS use protection! A virus scanner and an anti-malware program in Windows are a necessity, period.
This doesn't necessarily have to cost you anything extra, but as always you get what you pay for. Some applications we recommend are:

  • AVG Anti-virus and Malware  Buy - Available in both free and paid versions, AVG is a very lightweight but powerful tool for scanning your system for both viruses and spyware. You can enable both realtime or on-demand scanning of files and folders. GFI is available as a client application or as a network version that your admin can push out to computers on your network.
  • Windows Defender - Acquired by Microsoft last year from Giant, this is a very good anti-spyware application that provides a few other nice features, such as the ability to monitor and manage startup items. It is, currently, free, and is included by default in Windows Vista.

There are numerous (hundreds, literally) other antivirus and anti-spy/malware applications for Windows available (which says a lot, really) and it has become a PC cottage industry much the way iPod accessories have become on the Apple side. I recommend the applications above because I use them on the Windows network I manage, and have had a great deal of success in keeping the bad stuff out using them. You can research and try other applications at your discretion, of course.

It doesn't matter (much) what you use, as long as you use something! We would, however, strongly NOT recommend solutions such as Norton/Symantec or McAfee. They are simply too resource intensive and 'in your face' to be quite frank. These apps are prime examples of software that exists only to sell you more software.

That being said, here are a few links you can use to research and choose your Windows protection applications:

For spyware protection, check these out:

In conclusion...

We hope that this article has helped you gain a little insight in the ways you can protect your Macs files and folders from the dark side. Running Windows on a Mac is becoming less and less of a novelty, as more businesses start looking at ways to save money and resources by allocating dual boot machines to employees, or as home users deem a single computer that can do everything they need as a necessity.

If you have any comments, links, suggestions or anything else, feel free to post them below.

Post Data

Related Posts

  • Just look at it in a practical way: if I want to test ma Webpages, created on my Mac, it's very usefull to test it via Parallels with InternetExplorer - it's just a shortcut. I don't need to install Networks, boot a noisy PC an switch keyboards etc. Just one machine for everything. As long as Windows Apps behave different than others there's no other way than testin your Code in Windows. I don't have to use e-Mail or other things - so it prevents me from getting a worm or virus.
blog comments powered by Disqus