Secure your Mac in six simple steps

1 MANAGE LOGINS

In System Prefs, click ‘Users & Groups’; under your username, you can add a password or change an existing one. In Login Options, make sure you turn off Automatic login, too.

2 RESET USER PASSWORDS

To reset an account password, hold ‘Cmd-R’ at startup. When the macOS Utilities window appears, go to ‘Utilities > Terminal’, type “resetpassword”, then follow the on-screen instructions.

3 FIRMWARE PASSWORD

If you’re worried about passwords being reset from Terminal, set a firmware password. Hold ‘Cmd-R’ at startup, go to ‘Utilities > Startup Security Utility’, then click ‘Turn On Firmware Password’.

4 GATEKEEPER

To change your Gatekeeper settings, go to ‘System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General’. Here you can choose whether to allow apps from outside the App Store to be installed.

5 FILEVAULT

In ‘System Preferences > Security & Privacy’, click the FileVault tab, then the padlock icon. Type an admin name and password, then click ‘Turn On FileVault’. The Mac then silently encrypts its drive.

6 ROOT USER

This has total access to your Mac’s files, so don’t enable it without a very good reason, and be sure to disable it afterwards. See bit.ly/mfru for help — and give it your own strong password!