Mac security is always something one has to take seriously, and one of the tips apart from the usage of various Antivirus programs and the Filevault program, there are several settings which would help in increasing the security of the Mac OS X. One of the simple and useful step for security is to setup the Automatic Logging out from the Mac when it is inactive for a certain period of time. It does whatever the Mac does when it goes to sleep, i.e. are a certain amount of time you have set, the Mac saves all the active documents, closes all the apps and then log the user out. Once you start it back, everything comes back to the same position it was in, with the apps back running and the documents saved and running.
While you are away and have the Mac still running, it is a security risk which can anytime be attacked or breached, thus it is an essential step with the settings available directly in the Mac and you don’t need to download anything. Here’s how you can set up the Automatic Log Out on your Mac:
- Go to System Preferences (either by typing it on “Spotlight” or by going to Apps > System Preferences) where you see the various system settings and options
- Open “Security & Privacy” from the list of system preferences
- In the security and privacy settings, go to the General Tab on the top, and in the “General” tab in the lower corner, click on “Advanced” to open the advanced settings
- The Advanced tab will have the first option “Log out after ^ minutes of inactivity”
- In that, you need to set the time limit for the automatic logging out of the Mac, and this is by default set at 60 minutes which is a good time set but you may increase or decrease it based on your usage.
This is a pretty easy to set up option, and one shouldn’t ignore this one as it adds an extra layer of security. For the actual security, it is always advisable to use an Antivirus program, and here are a few we reviewed:
Here are a few Mac security tips for those who wanted to add the total protection to their Mac systems. Add this Automotic Log Out of Mac OS X with the Automatic Login Prevention as that would prevent the direct access back to all the potential files when you start the Mac after it automatically logged you out.