April 8, 2025 • 53 mins
Today we bring in a guest who consults with solopreneurs who run their businesses on Macs. This question is debated all the time: Is Mac really more secure than Windows? Well, today we heat things up on UnHacked as we battle it out.
- Where is Windows more vulnerable?
- Where is Mac more vulnerable?
- What threats are the same (PC vs Mac)
I don't know that we ever solved the primary question... but here are some good tips for staying safe, regardless of which platform you are passionate about.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justin Shelley (00:15):
Welcome everybody to episode 49 of
Unhacked. Guys, today, we aregoing to get down dirty and
maybe even bloody. We're gonnatalk about Apple products versus
Windows. We've got a specialguest here today to help us
break that one down. We've gotan Apple lover.
We've got an Apple hater, andwe've got an Apple neutral. So
with that, here we go, guys.Unhacked is a bit of a
(00:39):
deliberate misnomer. The realityis we can prevent breaches way
easier than we can unhack them.So once you get
Mario Zake (00:47):
hit, it's really hard to come back. There's
financial loss. There'semotional emotional costs.
There's reputation damage. Sowe're gonna stay always on the
the hope, the wish, the
Justin Shelley (00:58):
dream that we can prevent all these things.
Mario Zake (01:00):
That's what we're here to talk about. Apply the
basics. Keep the bad guys out.And then
Justin Shelley (01:06):
we have never have to get into this world
where we're trying to restorebecause, god, that's just a
mess.
Mario Zake (01:10):
So here we go. I am Justin Shelley, CEO of Phoenix
IT Advisors. And like I said, I
Justin Shelley (01:16):
keep people's bank accounts safe from Russian
hackers, from government finesand audits and penalties, and
from attorneys who want to
Mario Zake (01:23):
come around and sue you after you've been breached.
Justin Shelley (01:25):
That's what I do. I do work in Texas, Nevada
and Utah. As always, I'm herewith Mario. Mario, tell people
who you are, what you do and whoyou do it for.
Mario Zake (01:32):
Mario Zake, CEO of Mastech IT. We are located right
outside of Manhattan in NewJersey and been business for
twenty one years now, helpingsmall to medium sized Windows
users from staying safe andprotected and sleep better at
(01:54):
night.
Justin Shelley (01:55):
So I was gonna say Mario, are you the Windows
oh, sorry. Are you the Maclover, the Mac hater, or the Mac
neutral? But you gave it away.So I think I think we're clear.
There's only two left.
And with that, we're gonna goahead and introduce today's
special guest. Today we haveDamian whose last name I am not
going to try to pronounce.Damian say your last name for
me. See that's why I'm not goingto try. Damian where are you
(02:19):
from?
Mario Zake (02:20):
Belgium is that what you said?
Damien Schreurs (02:22):
I'm Belgian, but I'm living in Luxembourg.
Mario Zake (02:24):
There we go. Shows you about I
Justin Shelley (02:27):
know about geography. I don't even know
where these places are, guys.I'm a security guy. I'm not a
geography guy. Or even worse, Icould say I'm not a geologist.
Really show my ignorance. Okay,so Damian is the explainer in
chief of easy tech companyproviding IT training and
coaching on topics like Mario,you're gonna love this Apple
products. Oh, Microsoft Office.Okay, so we've some neutral
(02:48):
ground. Cybersecurity, we canall agree on that one.
And all things artificialintelligence, AI. While doing
that, Damian, I believe you alsohave a podcast. What's the name
of your podcast?
Damien Schreurs (02:59):
Yes. Macpreneur.
Justin Shelley (03:00):
Macpreneur podcast. How many episodes do
you have now?
Damien Schreurs (03:04):
I've released 137 today.
Justin Shelley (03:08):
One thirty seven?
Damien Schreurs (03:09):
Yes. One thirty seven. Oh, nice.
Mario Zake (03:12):
We gotta get our act together. He's kicking our ass.
Yeah. We need to do it liketwice a days.
Justin Shelley (03:17):
I know. Yeah. We're gonna have to catch up.
Anyways, Damian, thank you forbeing here. Tell me a little bit
about your podcast, what youtalk about on there.
Damien Schreurs (03:27):
Yeah. So it's the podcast for solopreneurs who
cannot imagine running theirbusiness on anything else than a
Mac. So the opposite of Mario,basically. And, yeah, I help
them. My goal is to help them bemore productive more efficient
so that they can save time savemoney and obviously cyber
(03:51):
security is one way for me tothe way I look at cyber security
is a little bit like aninsurance, It's you actually
prevent the loss of time and theloss of money that could happen
in the future.
Justin Shelley (04:09):
Absolutely. Yeah. So a little bit different.
We are our audience is small tomidsize businesses and
everybody's got a differentdefinition of that. So, know,
usually on the lower end, itmight be five or 10 employees on
the upper end, we might be 100,two hundred, even 300 employees.
Your focus as a solopreneur,tell me a little bit about why
you chose that audience.
Damien Schreurs (04:31):
So first of all, because I'm a solopreneur
myself.
Justin Shelley (04:34):
Okay.
Damien Schreurs (04:35):
And so I believe that I'm well equipped,
am knowledgeable about thechallenges of being a solo
business owner and having to, inmy case, being on the Apple
platform since 02/2007. So I'vehad a $9.25 for a Fortune 500
(05:00):
American company here inLuxembourg, and obviously it was
PCs. And for me, I was on PCsuntil 2016. But on the personal
side, 02/2007 is when I actuallystarted to fully migrate at home
to the Mac platform. So I haveexperience with both platforms.
(05:22):
And yeah the reason why I wentsolopreneur is also because it's
like, I don't know, from whichnumber of employees do you see
companies having IT staff reallyin house? In house probably
Mario Zake (05:43):
50 plus. Anywhere between depending on the
industry but yeah between 50 to100.
Justin Shelley (05:52):
And really it's trending more to outsourcing
even on the largerorganizations.
Mario Zake (05:57):
Or at least co manage. Right.
Damien Schreurs (05:59):
Because when started, I started providing IT
services as well, so consulting.And I realized that very
quickly, and it was a very smallbusiness, it's like 10 or less.
And I became the IT guy. You canfix it, if you can if you can
(06:22):
teach someone how to use acomputer, you supposed to also
be able to fix the printer, fixthe fax, fix everything.
Mario Zake (06:30):
Wiring, mount the TV, take care of the phone
system.
Damien Schreurs (06:35):
Exactly. And actually, I hated that because
when I left corporate, I wantedto have freedom. Wanted to have
a bit of time freedom. And tosuddenly become the firefighter
for small businesses was not thelife that I was imagining. So,
(06:58):
yeah, for me going solopreneurand also going more on the
teaching side of things, whichis why at EZTEC now I'm focusing
on IT training.
And one of the things is cybersecurity awareness, smartphone
security awareness trainings.Yes.
Justin Shelley (07:17):
I love it. Honestly the solopreneur
category is one that is veryunderserved in the IT community
general. IT, cybersecurity,whatever. In fact I do serve
that market, at least I don'tmarket to them because it's very
expensive to gain new clientsand you never make it the money
back, which is why IT companiesgenerally don't serve that that
(07:41):
market sadly. That said, I dohave a few.
Well, hang on. Hang on. I gottastart. No, this this poor sweet
lady was just just breached notlong ago, called me up and we
had to
Mario Zake (07:53):
go in and clean things up. She'd lost some
money.
Justin Shelley (07:57):
But it does it illustrates exactly why this
market is so important. So I'm Ilove that you are serving that.
There we go. Mario, I'm donewith my speech. Go ahead.
Mario Zake (08:05):
So Damian, if you're working with somebody and they
hire a new employee, do you getrid of them or not too big.
Justin Shelley (08:16):
I my drink out. God damn it, Mario. You're
fired. Oh, famous words of ourcurrent president.
Mario Zake (08:25):
No. It it is. It's it's it is very hard to, you
know, work with single, youknow, person because also you
don't want to, you know, theythey tend to be a little more
price conscious because, youknow, they they feel like they
want, you know, they're notalways having problems where if
you're in a working with acompany that's like 20 users,
(08:48):
you could it's safe to say thatat least daily or every other
day or, you know, every youknow, a couple times a week,
somebody's gonna have somethingthat you need to to to help
with. So the single ones aredefinitely underserved. So you
know, that's good.
Damien Schreurs (09:02):
Yeah, my solo client, it's really mainly what
I call coaching. It's not trulycoaching, but it's between
training and consulting. And I'malways I'm a bit pickier now
with my clients. I really wantclients who want to learn,
(09:23):
right? So that if they have aproblem and they call me, I will
teach them how to fix, how tonotice a problem and how to fix
the problem so that the nexttime they could do it by
themselves.
And Well,
Mario Zake (09:43):
you definitely keep yourself busy because with Macs,
they're constantly moving thingsand changing, you know, the the
where things are. You know, onceyou finally get the hang of it,
they just change it on youagain. So I I could see how you
you you know, you stay busy. Sothat's good.
Justin Shelley (10:01):
Unlike Microsoft who never changes anything.
Alright, Mario. Come on. You cando better on that. Listen.
I I will out myself as the Macneutral member of the group and
I don't wanna brag, but I'vebeen using window or sorry,
Apple products since likenineteen eighty something with
the Apple two e. So my I cut myteeth on Apple so I can't hate
(10:23):
on them too hard. But we'vemean, don't get
Mario Zake (10:28):
me wrong. I I have an Apple phone, know.
Justin Shelley (10:30):
Oh, shit. Mario.
Mario Zake (10:33):
I love the phone.
Justin Shelley (10:35):
Love the
Mario Zake (10:36):
phone. Wife will only work with Mac OS, so it's,
we battle all the time at thehouse.
Justin Shelley (10:46):
I've never had to kick somebody off before. I'm
trying to figure out how to likeclose out your feed right now.
Mario Zake (10:54):
Alright, guys. The the computers itself, you know,
that's a battle I I don't wannaget into.
Justin Shelley (11:02):
Well, tough shit. Because here we go. So
here guys is the question of theday. Damian, are Apple products
more secure? Yes or no?
True or false?
Damien Schreurs (11:13):
No. No. They are not people. Are not more
secure.
Mario Zake (11:16):
Guys, and that's a wrap. Thank you
Justin Shelley (11:18):
for joining us. We will see you next time. Take
care.
Mario Zake (11:20):
We win. We win.
Justin Shelley (11:24):
All right. Okay. So listen, a little bit of
background when before each ofthese episodes, when we bring on
a guest, I always have a just ashort interview with them
initially, right ahead of time.And then like, well, let's
figure out what we're gonna talkabout and stuff like that. First
question I asked Damian was, areApple products more secure?
And I fully expected him to sayyes. And then I was just going
(11:46):
say, all right, deuces, we'reout. But he didn't, he passed
the test. He said, no, they'renot. So today, Damian, I want to
pick your brain and I want toreally dig into this in all
seriousness.
I do believe that there arestrengths and weaknesses on both
sides and that's what I want todig into. So where is Windows
more vulnerable? Where isWindows more secure? Same
(12:07):
question for Macintosh, Apple,iPhone, whatever. Where is it
more vulnerable?
Where is it more secure? Andthen we're gonna kinda wrap this
up with where it's all neutral,where it's all the same because,
you know, some of it is specificto hardware and software
operating system, have you, someof it's not. So guys, let's jump
in. And I'm just gonna throwthis out for open discussion.
(12:29):
Where is Windows worse?
Mario, you can't talk herebecause you love them so much.
Mario Zake (12:37):
No. I mean, Windows, you know, obviously, it's you
know, me personally, if I was ahacker, right, and I'm going to
go and create something, I'mgonna create it for the larger
market share. Right. 75, 80percent of the market. And
(12:59):
that's where it's worse.
It's more easily distributedand, you know, it does allow
things to get through simpler,you know. It's not a lock system
like Microsoft is. I'm sorry,like Mac is. So that does that's
where the downfall for Windowsis.
Justin Shelley (13:20):
Okay. Damian, what are your thoughts on that?
Damien Schreurs (13:22):
Yeah. So the the installed base is roughly
90% market share globally. Soyeah, it's a bigger target.
Also, of that, and I don't blamenecessarily Microsoft, but
because they have such a bigmarket share, they are also more
reluctant than Apple to removethe problematic and legacy stuff
(13:48):
from their operating system. Andso I guess you guys also, know,
listen to the Security Nowpodcast with Steve Gibson.
And every other week or at leastonce a month is like, how come
Microsoft left this very oldcomponent still in windows
(14:09):
today, right? Years Give
Justin Shelley (14:12):
me an example of that. What's an example?
Damien Schreurs (14:14):
So there was an example in IIS, if I remember
correctly, in one of theepisodes where they had a
component that they left since Idon't remember now which version
of windows but it was Februaryor even before February and yeah
(14:37):
they left it there and the lastone that he mentioned is
something that actuallyMicrosoft isn't acknowledging as
a threat or an issue is with theLNK files. The fact that it's
possible to obfuscate things inthe path of the LNK file and so
(15:00):
now bad guys they just askpeople to download an LNK file.
When you look at the thing, itlooks legit. But actually, no,
it's going to go somewhere else.And you double click and you get
you can potentially get hacked.
Justin Shelley (15:19):
Game over. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe ecosystem of Windows versus
Apple slash Mac. Definitelytighter control on the Apple
side. What are the pros andcons? From security, from end
user, how's that helping andhurting?
Mario Zake (15:40):
Well, I I think from from like a Windows, you know,
point of view, if you wannacreate like a program, you know,
you could create it, test it,and, you know, and run it. You
know, with Mac, you know, youhave to go through a little more
loophole or not loopholes, youknow, security measures. Yeah.
(16:02):
Hoops. Hoops.
That's it. Get it approved thenand and then, you know, put it
on like their their platform andstuff like that. I'm not sure
about the PCs, but I know withlike the iPhones, if you put
something on like the app store,you know, they're also Apple
also wants a share, you know, ofof like the monthly, you know,
(16:28):
cost stuff like that. I'm apositive about the the desktop
versions.
Damien Schreurs (16:34):
Oh, okay. Yeah. So so the big the the the
difference between the iOSplatform and the macOS platform
is that on iOS, it's a littlebit more restricted on which
apps you can run and how toinstall applications. Now,
there's a misconception that theonly way to run apps on iPhone
is through the iOS App Store.There are other ways.
(16:57):
Right? There is one way which isTestFlight.
Mario Zake (17:01):
TestFlight,
Damien Schreurs (17:02):
yeah. It's possible to, and developers use
that TestFlight for beta versionof the applications. But
sometimes bad guys, theyadvertise applications that get
only delivered through testflight. I was once part of a
(17:22):
test program, I had a friend ofmine who had actually a test
application. And yes, there issome automated review of the
app, but it's not as thorough aswhen you submit it to the App
Store.
So there is a little bit moreleeway for malware to go
through. But then there is anentirely different mechanism to
(17:49):
run applications completelyoutside of the App Store. And
this is actually sanctioned byApple in the sense that large
companies, they have internalapplications, that you and I
cannot find on the App Store,but it's for the employees of
(18:10):
the large corporation. They needa mechanism for their employees
to run their iOS app. And sowhat happens is that they sign a
certificate that is also signedby Apple.
That certificate gets installedand it's available in the
(18:30):
settings app on the iPhone. Andthat certificate says this app
can run. And then they have amechanism to install the
application outside from the AppStore. Then you can run the
applications like that. Meta gotcaught using that scheme to so
(18:55):
they they were, like, rewardingstudents with gift cards and
stuff like that to installbasically spyware.
Meta created an that was able tocollect much more information
than a traditionally sandboxedapp on an iPhone. And yeah, I
Justin Shelley (19:20):
wish I was surprised. I listen, we're gonna
tangent for a second. There'sall the the talk about TikTok
and the spyware and how bad itis and the evil Chinese and I'm
not I don't know that I havemuch of an opinion there other
than every one of us is packingaround a device that is spyware
period. That's all it is. It'sall it is.
It listens to everything we saywhether it's Facebook or Google
(19:44):
or TikTok. Oh my god, it'sgathering all the information. I
don't know. Let's dig into thisfor a second because one of the
pushbacks that is becoming moreand more common is why do I
care? If I'm not doing anythingbad, why do I care?
What are your thoughts on that?
Mario Zake (20:02):
I mean, I I kinda have that same mentality. Like,
I never really uninstalled, youknow, TikTok off my phone. I I'm
I kinda have an addiction withTikTok to be if you ask my wife.
But, you know, it's you know,like, I I don't have anything on
there that, you know, there thatthat if it gets leaked that I'm
(20:26):
not secured, you know, securingthat it would be a problem, you
know.
Justin Shelley (20:32):
Just the mindset of I don't have anything to
hide, I don't care about myprivacy. In general, not TikTok
specific cause you know thisthis came up as Facebook using
kind of a side door, back door,whatever you wanna call it, that
Apple allows. They're they'reviolating or misusing an Apple
(20:55):
system, right? To do things thatApple does not want them to do.
Damien Schreurs (21:00):
Yeah, by the way, but Apple revoked their
certificate.
Justin Shelley (21:03):
Oh, really?
Damien Schreurs (21:04):
Yeah, yeah. And for two days, nobody at Meta
could use any applications,internal applications.
Justin Shelley (21:12):
That's funny.
Damien Schreurs (21:13):
And this was like, I think they understood.
They understood. They crossedthe line that they should not
have.
Justin Shelley (21:19):
That's funny. I love that. I actually
Mario Zake (21:22):
love that.
Damien Schreurs (21:23):
To come back, because I talked about iOS,
right? But on macOS, this iswhere macOS is a little bit less
secure, in the sense that thereare three kinds of applications
that we can install. We caninstall application from the Mac
App Store, the same way that wehave the Windows Store now. And
those applications need to beapproved by Apple. And then we
(21:48):
have what they called identifieddevelopers.
And what happens is that thedeveloper needs to register with
Apple. And the applications arecalled notarized. So again,
there is a certificatemechanism, which means that the
(22:13):
developer can then publish theapp on the website. I can
download the app, install theapp. The operating system will
see that it's notarized, willrecognize the certificate, will
let it run.
And that also allows Apple and Idon't know on the Microsoft side
if it's possible. But that meansthat for those kinds of
(22:35):
applications, whether it's AppStore or notarized, Apple is a
kill switch, right? If theyrealize an application is
malware, they can kill it on allMac platforms, all Mac hardware.
Because the next time somebodywill double click on it to run
(22:56):
it, it will not run, it will beprevented from running. And then
you have the applications thatare not notarized.
And there Apple has slightly andover time increased the security
of the system. Until the latestversion which is Sequoia, the
(23:22):
trick was you right click on theapp and you say open. So people
will double click and if youdouble click you will get a pop
up that says not authorized byApple or not authorized. You
will not be able to run it. Sobasic users normally are
(23:44):
protected.
Advanced users know, rightclick, open, and it opens. And
obviously, the bad guys, what dothey do? They explain. Yeah,
yeah. Please, You
Justin Shelley (23:56):
have to right click this one. Yeah.
Damien Schreurs (23:58):
So what happened, what Apple has done is
with Sequoia now, you can stilldo right click open, but it will
not open, it will give you a popup message telling you to go to
the settings app. And in thesettings app, you have to click
on a button to allow the the appto run the
Mario Zake (24:18):
same time. And this is where it gets crazy because
you go into settings and thenyou have to turn on like the the
file and recorder, then you haveto turn you know, especially
with just like security tools,you know, like SentinelOne, we
use SentinelOne for all oursystems.
Damien Schreurs (24:39):
Mhmm.
Mario Zake (24:39):
And you have to go into 11 different spots and
allow it, and then put in thepassword, then, you know, go
somewhere else, allow it, put inyour password, Allow it, put it
in your password. Stop, drop,and roll, and then pray that it
will show up. And it doesn't. Itdoesn't show up. It doesn't
(25:02):
work.
And then you have and then theykeep changing where they put so
I you can't even document stuffaccurately because by next
month, they've moved everything,you know, where it was. And it's
like, oh my god.
Damien Schreurs (25:19):
I've stopped preparing training material on
Apple and making screenshotsbecause every year and sometimes
every six months, I had tochange all the screenshots. And
I was like, forget forget it.I'm gonna do coaching.
Mario Zake (25:31):
Yeah. And don't get me wrong. Like, it it you know,
if if you have, like, an like,some things with Apple are
awesome. Like, you know,AirDrop. I love that you can
just AirDrop, like a picturefrom your phone to your your
computer or vice versa.
You know, if you have an Applephone with a MacBook, you can,
(25:52):
you know, text message will cometo both of them. Know, I do have
an Apple watch, you know.
Justin Shelley (25:57):
A demo, Mario.
Mario Zake (25:58):
It's just the PC. The the the this the Windows
product, you know. And then youknow what? They don't have it
anymore, but Windows used tomake phones, you know. I
would've I would've probablywent with a Windows phone and a
Windows watch if they made it.
There's a good reason they quitmaking those. Those were
terrible.
Damien Schreurs (26:17):
I had one. Remember the Zune? Remember the
Zune?
Mario Zake (26:21):
Yes. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So but the and in, know,
Damian, that's why in in like meand my guys, that's where we
like we cringe when we get aphone call from somebody that
that's on a Mac, know.
And and the thing is, you know,they wanna use like three
Microsoft three sixty five. Theywanna use exchange email. Guess
(26:46):
what? They don't like playingwell together. You know, they
you know, even if you just wantyour emails, they don't play
well together and that's theproblem.
Damien Schreurs (26:57):
And yeah, and it's getting worse and worse. So
all the, all my clients, the,some of my clients are actually
fully into the Microsoft threesixty five ecosystem. For them,
and I have one client, time shecalls me, I ask her, did you use
(27:17):
the Apple Mail app or did youuse Outlook? And every time she
says, no. No.
I'm using the Apple Mail app.And every time I have to say her
to tell her, stop using theApple Mail app. Use Outlook.
Right? If somebody wants to doMicrosoft three sixty five on a
Mac, Outlook is the best foremail calendar contact because,
(27:40):
unfortunately, it has degradedover time.
The the synchronization is notworking as well as as before.
Mario Zake (27:48):
Yeah. Yeah. And I I agree. And like just yesterday,
I was on a Mac, you know, clientwith with Mac. He has full
Office three sixty fiveinstalled.
He can, you know, open up Word,he can open up Excel, he you
know, Outlook, we're trying toadd his email. He logs in, puts
in his password, puts in his twofactor authentication, and then
(28:12):
it spins, spins, spins, spins,and it just doesn't go. And then
you have to kill it and try itagain and says, oh, do you wanna
register? And you say yes. Andthen it comes up with no.
It just came up with an answerthat just said no. And I'm like,
what the fuck?
Justin Shelley (28:31):
Oh, god. This is, Thank you, Steve Jobs. Rest
in peace. Anyways, guys, sookay. Mario, you kinda touched
on one that I wanted to talkabout is where where I believe
that as the as the Mac neutralguy here, that where I do think
that Mac is, I don't wanna saybehind, but definitely where
(28:55):
there might be a vulnerabilityis that there are fewer
resources.
So number one, they're betterbecause they have a smaller
footprint and they aren't as bigof a target for the bad guys.
Right? But that comes withpayload. And the problem with
that is there aren't as manyeffective mainstream security
tools for Mac. At least that'smy experience.
(29:15):
Damian, what are your thoughtson that? Is that true or false?
Damien Schreurs (29:19):
It's partly true. So I'm using Sophos and
I'm installing Sophos on all thecomputers, and Sophos is multi
platform. It's one of the lessresource intensive anti malware
on the Mac. The built insecurity of macOS is much worse
(29:45):
than the built in than thanMicrosoft Defender. Right?
Nowadays, Microsoft Defender,most people could just live with
that.
Justin Shelley (29:54):
It's pretty solid.
Damien Schreurs (29:55):
I know it's not % perfect, but it's a very good
product.
Justin Shelley (29:59):
Yeah.
Damien Schreurs (30:00):
Whereas the built in gatekeeper and Xprotect
on the Mac is laughable. Thenumber of it's 20 something
families of malware onlynatively recognized. Right? So
for me, Sophos immediately andthat's to give you an idea, the
(30:22):
home version of Sophos istotally free, three computers.
It doesn't have advancedprotection like anti ransomware,
but it has the basiccapabilities.
I pay very, I don't remember howmuch is very like $45 per year
(30:48):
or something. Ridiculous, theprice and it covers 10 computers
max or pcs by the way so it'sboth right I have one of my
daughters has a gaming pc soit's protected I'm doing IT
training on Microsoft Office. Ihave a PC, have a Lenovo
(31:11):
ThinkPad.
Mario Zake (31:12):
Databoy.
Justin Shelley (31:15):
Good old Wow. We're all friends again.
Damien Schreurs (31:20):
We're It has obviously Sophos on it as well.
And with Sophos, can do webcammonitoring, microphone
monitoring. What else can I do?Yeah. Anti ransomware.
So it continuously checks on theMac whether files are getting
encrypted or not which in somecases is a problem because yeah
(31:44):
some applications tend toencrypt data locally and so
forth Sometimes there are somefalse negatives. But yeah, and
I'm sorry, and I wanted to sayso there is a guy called Patrick
Wardle. I don't remember, heworked for CISA on the NSA or
(32:09):
something like that. And he's aMac guy. And he has a bunch of
tools.
Patrick Warder, I'm going toquickly Objective C, it's called
Objective C and the tools thereis toolbox for mac is incredible
(32:34):
right so I've installed anapplication that checks every
time that there is a new ipconnection from an app and I can
block the IP connection. So Imonitor whenever an app does a
web request. I have also anapplication that checks whether
(32:57):
an application installssomething as a login item or
yeah and stuff like that. Soyeah, for people or the
listeners who are on Mac and whoare a bit tech savvy, go and see
objectivec.org. You will find alot of useful security.
Justin Shelley (33:20):
And you're saying c as in the letter, not
the ocean, right? Objectivedash?
Damien Schreurs (33:24):
C s e e. Like
Justin Shelley (33:26):
Oh, like to like the vision. Vision. Okay.
Damien Schreurs (33:28):
Vision. Yes. Objective.
Justin Shelley (33:30):
Because while you were talking, I did a quick
Google search and I came up witha programming language. So
there's many ways we can gowrong here. But Damien, so I
wanna I wanna talk a little bitabout you're you're kind of
identifying another problem thatthe Mac world faces is because
you're talking about for thetech savvy user and you just
(33:50):
explain stuff that is gonna goover almost everybody's head
Mhmm. That just the averagecomputer user. Right?
And to one of the problems thatApple has created in my
experience is they've kind ofkept us from becoming or
promoting ourselves as Macexperts. And I haven't done this
(34:11):
recently, but I will tell youthat years ago, I started
running some Google ads that weworked on Macintosh computers.
Apple shut me down. So Icouldn't even advertise that I
would work on their productsbecause they wanted to push
everybody to the genius bar.
Damien Schreurs (34:28):
Wow.
Justin Shelley (34:29):
You know, and and I'm not talking about
consumers. I'm trying to helpbusinesses. Mhmm. And I don't
know if that's changed. I'm justlike, fuck it guys.
Like if you don't want help thenfine. You I'll you come to me
and ask if I work on Mac. Yes, Ido. My company does. We will
help you.
I I do feel proficient in thatworld even though we do have all
the problems that Mario istalking about. Yes, things
(34:50):
change. But Mario, I hate tobreak it to you. That is the
world of technology. Everythingchanges all the time everywhere,
which is honestly something thatkeeps me entertained as a self
diagnosed ADHD person.
Mario Zake (35:02):
Well, Justin, it's they're changing stuff that's
kind of annoying that they'rechanging. Like, you know, like,
my wife like, told you, my wife,she's a Mac. She's she loves
Mac, you know, and she will geta new, like, MacBook Pro or
MacBook Air or whatever the hellit's called now. And, you know,
(35:24):
through her company, they'll gether a new laptop every two
years. So she she keeps gettingthem and whatever even and and,
you know, they'll they'll allwork fine.
But every time she's getting anew one, it's different
chargers. You know? Like, one ismagnetic, and then one is not
magnetic, then one you one isUSB c, and then they go back to
(35:44):
magnetic. And it's like, whatthe fuck, guys? Like, and I you
know, and she's and of course,my wife tells me, Mario, could
you go upstairs and get mycharger?
I come down with like sevenchargers and guess what? None of
them work.
Justin Shelley (35:59):
Right. Okay. But I'm I've I gotta push back
because I have I threw it awayfinally, but I had like a great
big case of Windows machinecharger, laptop chargers that
were all different and that byevery every goddamn manufacturer
has 20 different versions oftheir own chargers. So
Mario Zake (36:16):
That is true. That is true.
Justin Shelley (36:17):
I I mean, I hear you and dot dot dot. I'm not
sure how much different it is.But I I will just say like
technology is a pain. I honestlybelieve that this is a Ford
Chevy situation. I think if youare in the Mac world, you do
come with a little bit of rosecolored glasses where you do
believe everything Mac is greatand everything Windows is shit.
(36:41):
And vice versa as Mario isgreatly pointing out today, that
goes both ways. Here is what Ibelieve. This is the last thing
I wanna talk about and thenwe're gonna move to wrap this
up. Here's what I believe to bethe number one problem with
Macintosh computers wheresecurity is concerned. And I'm
gonna put this in quotes becauseI hear it all the time.
(37:01):
Macs are more secure. That Ibelieve is the problem. I
believe mindset is the problemthat that because because Mac
users believe that true or not,it doesn't matter. What it does
mean is they are less apt tohave security software. And I
love Damien that you're pointingout Sophos.
I'm going to look into more intothat one. I'm I use other
(37:23):
software and I guess I won'tplug names, but I also see a lot
of Macs that are unpatched. Andwhen I was doing research for
this episode, found, you know,patching is one of the places
where Apple shines becausewindow does it all the time.
It's annoying so people don't doit. You know how many Macs I
find that are fully patched?
Never. I don't see it and it'ssupposed to be automatic, it's
(37:44):
supposed to be easy. I don't seethat. But I do think again,
coming back to this mindsetproblem, we're better, we don't
have to worry about it. That'sour last topic.
Damian first, then Mario, whatare your thoughts on this one?
Damien Schreurs (37:58):
Yeah, it's a complete total misconception. I
see that every time I talk toother Mac users. They falsely
believe that because they have aMac it's immune to any kind of
malware or stuff like that.That's bullshit. And there is
another problem and somethingthat actually I'm seeing now
(38:21):
more and more because Apple hasbeen quite pushing new features
all the time.
Number one, macOS is gettingbuggier and buggier. So they are
implementing, they have theWindows It or something like
that. They have I call that thewindowsification of macOS
(38:47):
unfortunately. That's the paththat Apple has taken,
Justin Shelley (38:52):
right? Interesting.
Damien Schreurs (38:54):
Releasing more new features than fixing
existing bugs.
Mario Zake (39:00):
And
Damien Schreurs (39:01):
as a consequence, some people now are
afraid of upgrading andupdating. And from my side, I
know that it's important toupgrade so I would still give a
gold star to Apple in the sensethat Apple supports the last
(39:27):
three version of the operatingsystem. So they continue
offering still security updateson so the latest one are at the
time of recording is Sequoia,and then the one before Sonoma,
and one Ventura. These threeversions still are getting
patched. Okay.
Which is unheard of in theMicrosoft and the Windows world.
(39:50):
So that's where I would sayApple shines. On the flip side,
they've been so aggressive withnew features that myself I'm
still on Ventura because I knowthat if I go to Sonoma I'm gonna
maybe regret it a little bit andI avoid at all costs, the latest
(40:13):
version of macOS. And in mymind, installing the latest
version of macOS right when it'sreleased, so in September,
October, is a security risk.Yeah, because there are so many
bugs and unpatchedvulnerabilities, unknown
vulnerabilities.
(40:34):
And also from a userperspective, because people
think security equals malware.No. If you lose data, if if
preview, which is the equivalentof Adobe PDF, overwrite stuff,
remove the OCR because it hashappened in the past and people
(40:55):
have lost the OCR portions oftheir PDFs just by opening them
after the upgrade. It's likenice. Nice.
Mario Zake (41:05):
Not to mention that I remember I mentioned this to
my cousins, my two cousins thatI'm really close with. I'm like,
every time I update my phonebefore the new iPhone comes out,
all of a sudden my phone startsgetting really, really slow. And
(41:27):
they looked at me, they're like,you're a conspiracy theorist.
You're crazy. You're, you know,you're absolutely nuts.
That's not true. And I said itfor years.
Damien Schreurs (41:37):
I'm like I confirm. I confirm. I have the
same experience.
Mario Zake (41:41):
Yeah. And guess what? All of a sudden Mac gets
hit with this billions billiondollar lawsuit that they were
doing it on purpose. Of course.They were purposely slowing down
Justin Shelley (41:54):
Of everything
Mario Zake (41:54):
that I know of their phones because the new they
wanted to push you to the newone. And that's that kinda but,
know, I am still I I I'm stillan iPhone user. I like the blue
bubbles. I don't like the greenbubbles when I'm texting. Coming
(42:15):
back to security, I mean, Ithink they're more secure
because nobody knows how tofreaking install anything on
there without actually, youknow, like we're we're you know,
I can tell you this, I thinkhalf our Macs are probably like,
we have half the antivirusinstalled because when we
install it, we have to gothrough five more steps.
(42:37):
And I think we my guys areprobably going through three and
then just say, fuck it. I don'tknow what else to do. You know?
Like but, you know, it's youknow, it it it is comes back to
a lot of what I said earlier aswell. Like they are just as
vulnerable, but hackers andstuff like that, they're gonna
go after the bigger part of thepie, the 80% of the people out
(43:04):
there, even just throughcustomers of mine.
A lot of them, a lot of thebigger offices, 20 or more
users, the majority of thecomputers will be Windows based
computers. And then you'll havethe random owners that wanna use
(43:25):
a Mac, they're the ones that getthe Mac computer. So they're
going to go after the 80%because it's a numbers game.
They send out spam, stuff likethat, it's a numbers game.
Justin Shelley (43:39):
Well, Mario, you're absolutely right. I think
there's two categories that themain categories that the hackers
are targeting. And one is thisgreat big target. It's more
efficient that way, but theother one I think is this
mindset of I'm not vulnerable.Right?
(44:00):
And and and that is where likeWindows is more at risk because
there's more of them, it's moreeconomical, cost effective for
people to attack Windows. Butit's also I believe a lot of Mac
users are an easier targetbecause of this mindset that,
you know, it's not gonna happento me. Don't have to worry about
it.
Mario Zake (44:18):
They think they're bulletproof.
Justin Shelley (44:21):
Yeah. Damon, any final thoughts on that one?
Damien Schreurs (44:25):
No. It's it's really yeah. It's and I don't
have the numbers but I don'tknow many Mac users, so current
Mac user, the user base, howmany came from the iPhone and
the iPad and how many are longtime Mac users because I believe
(44:50):
that when you come from theiPhone or the iPad it's easy to
have this false sense ofsecurity
Justin Shelley (44:58):
right
Damien Schreurs (44:58):
because the iPhone and on any mobile
platform it's same with Androidright the security mechanisms
are much tighter on those mobileplatforms because they learned
and they implemented that andreduced the footprint. And so
(45:19):
maybe that's part of it. But Ialso I'm sure the old guard, the
old Mac guard, they believe theyare yeah. It's it's impossible
to to break them. To break
Mario Zake (45:33):
them That's a good point. Yeah. I I think you're
right. I think because of theiOS, you know, iPad or the
iPhone, people more people aregoing to like the MacBooks and,
know, have that mentality like,oh, this thing's indestructible.
Justin Shelley (45:50):
Right.
Mario Zake (45:51):
Yeah. It's a good point.
Justin Shelley (45:53):
All right guys, I think we've beat to death the
differences between the two.We're we're running out of time
guys. This has been fun andwe've been a little long winded
here. So let's very quickly justtalk about because in in some
ways security is security and itdoesn't matter how you access
your information. Ultimately, ifyour information isn't safe,
you're in trouble.
If your money isn't safe, you'rein trouble. So Damian, I'll I'll
(46:17):
go
Mario Zake (46:17):
to you first, Mario and and these are kind of final
thoughts, then we'll we'll do
Justin Shelley (46:21):
key key takeaways and and we're out. So
Damian, where do you see thesecurity or the problems being
the same regardless of platform?
Damien Schreurs (46:31):
So for me it's the fact that most people run as
administrator and when are whenyou only have one user account
obviously it makes sense and Idon't remember the exact figure
in my mind it's like 90% of mostattacks could be stopped if
(46:53):
people were running with astandard account or with less
privileges. And I see that allthe time on the Mac with my
business clients or mysolopreneur clients. That's the
first thing we do, we create astandard account. Well, no,
(47:14):
yeah, we know, I create anotheradmin account, a second admin
account. We log into that adminaccount, the owner knows the
password of that admin account,obviously, right?
Justin Shelley (47:25):
She
Damien Schreurs (47:26):
needs to be in control, but then goes to the
admin account and reduces theprivileges of the main account.
And then goes back to the mainaccount. And yes, it's a little
bit less convenient becauseevery time they want to install
an app that is outside of theApp Store, or they want to make
changes in the settings app,they then have to remember,
(47:49):
okay, that's the user account,the admin user account, the
admin password. But I believe itincreases tremendously the
security of their Mac. And Ibelieve it is the same on
Windows platform.
Justin Shelley (48:04):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely a big problem. Yeah.
Big problem.
And I will just point out herethat if security isn't a pain in
your ass, you're not doing itright. So yes, there are
inconveniences that come withsecurity. But there's a bigger
inconvenience which comes withan empty bank account because
somebody got in and stole it oryou're being sued because you
weren't protecting your clientsinformation. So Mario, final
(48:26):
thoughts on Mac versus PC as farbut really it's where are they
the same? Where are the problemsthe same?
Mario Zake (48:33):
Yeah, kind of agree with what Damian said, you still
have to be cautious, you stillhave to take those same you
know, security measures ofcreating different, you know,
usernames, you know, stillrunning an antivirus, you know,
something that's gonna protectyou, you know, real you know,
(48:54):
from real attacks. You can'tlive feeling like, hey, I'm I'm
untouchable, you know, becauseno matter what, they are just as
vulnerable. You know, you can'tthink that because you're a part
of the 20% that, you know, thatit nothing out there is gonna
hurt you, you know. Right.You're you're not running under
(49:16):
the radar.
It's just like we've said it,Justin, for years now, it's not
a matter of if it's a matter ofone because eventually, you
know, people are gonna realizelike, hey, you know, these guys
aren't even protectingthemselves, you know. So, you
know, be smart, you know, andand take the proper steps to to
stay secure.
Justin Shelley (49:37):
Yeah. And, you know, while I've been picking on
the the mindset of Mac usersthat they believe to themselves
to be more secure, the samecould be said of every human on
the planet. And this is actuallyone of the the great things
about our brains and also thebiggest vulnerability about how
we think and operate as humans.There are so many risks out
there. If we worried about everysingle one of them, we would be
(50:01):
frozen out of fear.
And so we have to learn to tellourselves that we're not going
to die when we get in our car,even though people do every
single day. We have to be ableto convince ourselves that when
we turn our computer on, we'regoing to be safe, otherwise we
wouldn't do it, we wouldn't runbusinesses. So it's a truth,
(50:21):
it's a problem, it's also how wesurvive and we just have to
learn to balance that andmitigate it. That's kind of
where I believe they're the sameon both guys. This is gonna be
our our final thirty seconds keytakeaway, Mario you're gonna go
first if people listen to onlythis from our entire episode,
what would you want them to hearfrom Mario Zackey?
Mario Zake (50:42):
That no matter what, you have to stay safe. Don't
bother creating tutorials, youknow, to to help your people
for, you know, get around theMac because they're just gonna
turn on and change it a coupledays later.
Justin Shelley (50:57):
I thought you'd say something like that. Damian,
final thoughts.
Damien Schreurs (51:02):
For me, it's just simply Macs are not more
secure than Windows PCs. And youhave any computer actually, the
computer platform itself is lesssecure than the mobile device
platform. So I would encouragepeople to have a kind of a
(51:23):
different mindset when theythink about their mobile phone,
their smartphone versus theircomputer.
Justin Shelley (51:30):
Right. Okay. And, again, you know, I love I
love that you are serving thisunderserved segment of the
market. The solopreneur ingeneral Mac users, there aren't
as many of them, but absolutelyneed the help as much as any of
us do. So thank you for that,guys.
If if you would like to learnmore about Damian and Damian,
(51:51):
say your last name one moretime. Sure. I'm not gonna try
it.
Mario Zake (51:56):
Go to Macpreneur dot com. And, guys,
Justin Shelley (51:58):
this this is even a a mouthful.
Macpreneur.com. And if you can'tspell that or sound it out, then
go to unhacked.live where wehave links to Damian, all of his
social media platforms, and hispodcast. Damian, thank you so
much for being here. Reallyappreciate it.
Love the banter. Love theinsights.
Mario Zake (52:16):
Again, thank you. Thank you very much for being a
great support. Thank you forjoining us.
Damien Schreurs (52:21):
Thank you for having having me.
Justin Shelley (52:23):
And Mario, as always, thank you for being
here, guys. We're gonna Thankyou.
Mario Zake (52:26):
We're gonna wrap for this week. Everybody say
goodbye.
Justin Shelley (52:29):
Take care. We'll see you next time. Goodbye,
guys.
Welcome everybody to episode 49 of
Unhacked. Guys, today, we aregoing to get down dirty and
maybe even bloody. We're gonnatalk about Apple products versus
Windows. We've got a specialguest here today to help us
break that one down. We've gotan Apple lover.
We've got an Apple hater, andwe've got an Apple neutral. So
with that, here we go, guys.Unhacked is a bit of a
(00:39):
deliberate misnomer. The realityis we can prevent breaches way
easier than we can unhack them.So once you get
Mario Zake (00:47):
hit, it's really hard to come back. There's
financial loss. There'semotional emotional costs.
There's reputation damage. Sowe're gonna stay always on the
the hope, the wish, the
Justin Shelley (00:58):
dream that we can prevent all these things.
Mario Zake (01:00):
That's what we're here to talk about. Apply the
basics. Keep the bad guys out.And then
Justin Shelley (01:06):
we have never have to get into this world
where we're trying to restorebecause, god, that's just a
mess.
Mario Zake (01:10):
So here we go. I am Justin Shelley, CEO of Phoenix
IT Advisors. And like I said, I
Justin Shelley (01:16):
keep people's bank accounts safe from Russian
hackers, from government finesand audits and penalties, and
from attorneys who want to
Mario Zake (01:23):
come around and sue you after you've been breached.
Justin Shelley (01:25):
That's what I do. I do work in Texas, Nevada
and Utah. As always, I'm herewith Mario. Mario, tell people
who you are, what you do and whoyou do it for.
Mario Zake (01:32):
Mario Zake, CEO of Mastech IT. We are located right
outside of Manhattan in NewJersey and been business for
twenty one years now, helpingsmall to medium sized Windows
users from staying safe andprotected and sleep better at
(01:54):
night.
Justin Shelley (01:55):
So I was gonna say Mario, are you the Windows
oh, sorry. Are you the Maclover, the Mac hater, or the Mac
neutral? But you gave it away.So I think I think we're clear.
There's only two left.
And with that, we're gonna goahead and introduce today's
special guest. Today we haveDamian whose last name I am not
going to try to pronounce.Damian say your last name for
me. See that's why I'm not goingto try. Damian where are you
(02:19):
from?
Mario Zake (02:20):
Belgium is that what you said?
Damien Schreurs (02:22):
I'm Belgian, but I'm living in Luxembourg.
Mario Zake (02:24):
There we go. Shows you about I
Justin Shelley (02:27):
know about geography. I don't even know
where these places are, guys.I'm a security guy. I'm not a
geography guy. Or even worse, Icould say I'm not a geologist.
Really show my ignorance. Okay,so Damian is the explainer in
chief of easy tech companyproviding IT training and
coaching on topics like Mario,you're gonna love this Apple
products. Oh, Microsoft Office.Okay, so we've some neutral
(02:48):
ground. Cybersecurity, we canall agree on that one.
And all things artificialintelligence, AI. While doing
that, Damian, I believe you alsohave a podcast. What's the name
of your podcast?
Damien Schreurs (02:59):
Yes. Macpreneur.
Justin Shelley (03:00):
Macpreneur podcast. How many episodes do
you have now?
Damien Schreurs (03:04):
I've released 137 today.
Justin Shelley (03:08):
One thirty seven?
Damien Schreurs (03:09):
Yes. One thirty seven. Oh, nice.
Mario Zake (03:12):
We gotta get our act together. He's kicking our ass.
Yeah. We need to do it liketwice a days.
Justin Shelley (03:17):
I know. Yeah. We're gonna have to catch up.
Anyways, Damian, thank you forbeing here. Tell me a little bit
about your podcast, what youtalk about on there.
Damien Schreurs (03:27):
Yeah. So it's the podcast for solopreneurs who
cannot imagine running theirbusiness on anything else than a
Mac. So the opposite of Mario,basically. And, yeah, I help
them. My goal is to help them bemore productive more efficient
so that they can save time savemoney and obviously cyber
(03:51):
security is one way for me tothe way I look at cyber security
is a little bit like aninsurance, It's you actually
prevent the loss of time and theloss of money that could happen
in the future.
Justin Shelley (04:09):
Absolutely. Yeah. So a little bit different.
We are our audience is small tomidsize businesses and
everybody's got a differentdefinition of that. So, know,
usually on the lower end, itmight be five or 10 employees on
the upper end, we might be 100,two hundred, even 300 employees.
Your focus as a solopreneur,tell me a little bit about why
you chose that audience.
Damien Schreurs (04:31):
So first of all, because I'm a solopreneur
myself.
Justin Shelley (04:34):
Okay.
Damien Schreurs (04:35):
And so I believe that I'm well equipped,
am knowledgeable about thechallenges of being a solo
business owner and having to, inmy case, being on the Apple
platform since 02/2007. So I'vehad a $9.25 for a Fortune 500
(05:00):
American company here inLuxembourg, and obviously it was
PCs. And for me, I was on PCsuntil 2016. But on the personal
side, 02/2007 is when I actuallystarted to fully migrate at home
to the Mac platform. So I haveexperience with both platforms.
(05:22):
And yeah the reason why I wentsolopreneur is also because it's
like, I don't know, from whichnumber of employees do you see
companies having IT staff reallyin house? In house probably
Mario Zake (05:43):
50 plus. Anywhere between depending on the
industry but yeah between 50 to100.
Justin Shelley (05:52):
And really it's trending more to outsourcing
even on the largerorganizations.
Mario Zake (05:57):
Or at least co manage. Right.
Damien Schreurs (05:59):
Because when started, I started providing IT
services as well, so consulting.And I realized that very
quickly, and it was a very smallbusiness, it's like 10 or less.
And I became the IT guy. You canfix it, if you can if you can
(06:22):
teach someone how to use acomputer, you supposed to also
be able to fix the printer, fixthe fax, fix everything.
Mario Zake (06:30):
Wiring, mount the TV, take care of the phone
system.
Damien Schreurs (06:35):
Exactly. And actually, I hated that because
when I left corporate, I wantedto have freedom. Wanted to have
a bit of time freedom. And tosuddenly become the firefighter
for small businesses was not thelife that I was imagining. So,
(06:58):
yeah, for me going solopreneurand also going more on the
teaching side of things, whichis why at EZTEC now I'm focusing
on IT training.
And one of the things is cybersecurity awareness, smartphone
security awareness trainings.Yes.
Justin Shelley (07:17):
I love it. Honestly the solopreneur
category is one that is veryunderserved in the IT community
general. IT, cybersecurity,whatever. In fact I do serve
that market, at least I don'tmarket to them because it's very
expensive to gain new clientsand you never make it the money
back, which is why IT companiesgenerally don't serve that that
(07:41):
market sadly. That said, I dohave a few.
Well, hang on. Hang on. I gottastart. No, this this poor sweet
lady was just just breached notlong ago, called me up and we
had to
Mario Zake (07:53):
go in and clean things up. She'd lost some
money.
Justin Shelley (07:57):
But it does it illustrates exactly why this
market is so important. So I'm Ilove that you are serving that.
There we go. Mario, I'm donewith my speech. Go ahead.
Mario Zake (08:05):
So Damian, if you're working with somebody and they
hire a new employee, do you getrid of them or not too big.
Justin Shelley (08:16):
I my drink out. God damn it, Mario. You're
fired. Oh, famous words of ourcurrent president.
Mario Zake (08:25):
No. It it is. It's it's it is very hard to, you
know, work with single, youknow, person because also you
don't want to, you know, theythey tend to be a little more
price conscious because, youknow, they they feel like they
want, you know, they're notalways having problems where if
you're in a working with acompany that's like 20 users,
(08:48):
you could it's safe to say thatat least daily or every other
day or, you know, every youknow, a couple times a week,
somebody's gonna have somethingthat you need to to to help
with. So the single ones aredefinitely underserved. So you
know, that's good.
Damien Schreurs (09:02):
Yeah, my solo client, it's really mainly what
I call coaching. It's not trulycoaching, but it's between
training and consulting. And I'malways I'm a bit pickier now
with my clients. I really wantclients who want to learn,
(09:23):
right? So that if they have aproblem and they call me, I will
teach them how to fix, how tonotice a problem and how to fix
the problem so that the nexttime they could do it by
themselves.
And Well,
Mario Zake (09:43):
you definitely keep yourself busy because with Macs,
they're constantly moving thingsand changing, you know, the the
where things are. You know, onceyou finally get the hang of it,
they just change it on youagain. So I I could see how you
you you know, you stay busy. Sothat's good.
Justin Shelley (10:01):
Unlike Microsoft who never changes anything.
Alright, Mario. Come on. You cando better on that. Listen.
I I will out myself as the Macneutral member of the group and
I don't wanna brag, but I'vebeen using window or sorry,
Apple products since likenineteen eighty something with
the Apple two e. So my I cut myteeth on Apple so I can't hate
(10:23):
on them too hard. But we'vemean, don't get
Mario Zake (10:28):
me wrong. I I have an Apple phone, know.
Justin Shelley (10:30):
Oh, shit. Mario.
Mario Zake (10:33):
I love the phone.
Justin Shelley (10:35):
Love the
Mario Zake (10:36):
phone. Wife will only work with Mac OS, so it's,
we battle all the time at thehouse.
Justin Shelley (10:46):
I've never had to kick somebody off before. I'm
trying to figure out how to likeclose out your feed right now.
Mario Zake (10:54):
Alright, guys. The the computers itself, you know,
that's a battle I I don't wannaget into.
Justin Shelley (11:02):
Well, tough shit. Because here we go. So
here guys is the question of theday. Damian, are Apple products
more secure? Yes or no?
True or false?
Damien Schreurs (11:13):
No. No. They are not people. Are not more
secure.
Mario Zake (11:16):
Guys, and that's a wrap. Thank you
Justin Shelley (11:18):
for joining us. We will see you next time. Take
care.
Mario Zake (11:20):
We win. We win.
Justin Shelley (11:24):
All right. Okay. So listen, a little bit of
background when before each ofthese episodes, when we bring on
a guest, I always have a just ashort interview with them
initially, right ahead of time.And then like, well, let's
figure out what we're gonna talkabout and stuff like that. First
question I asked Damian was, areApple products more secure?
And I fully expected him to sayyes. And then I was just going
(11:46):
say, all right, deuces, we'reout. But he didn't, he passed
the test. He said, no, they'renot. So today, Damian, I want to
pick your brain and I want toreally dig into this in all
seriousness.
I do believe that there arestrengths and weaknesses on both
sides and that's what I want todig into. So where is Windows
more vulnerable? Where isWindows more secure? Same
(12:07):
question for Macintosh, Apple,iPhone, whatever. Where is it
more vulnerable?
Where is it more secure? Andthen we're gonna kinda wrap this
up with where it's all neutral,where it's all the same because,
you know, some of it is specificto hardware and software
operating system, have you, someof it's not. So guys, let's jump
in. And I'm just gonna throwthis out for open discussion.
(12:29):
Where is Windows worse?
Mario, you can't talk herebecause you love them so much.
Mario Zake (12:37):
No. I mean, Windows, you know, obviously, it's you
know, me personally, if I was ahacker, right, and I'm going to
go and create something, I'mgonna create it for the larger
market share. Right. 75, 80percent of the market. And
(12:59):
that's where it's worse.
It's more easily distributedand, you know, it does allow
things to get through simpler,you know. It's not a lock system
like Microsoft is. I'm sorry,like Mac is. So that does that's
where the downfall for Windowsis.
Justin Shelley (13:20):
Okay. Damian, what are your thoughts on that?
Damien Schreurs (13:22):
Yeah. So the the installed base is roughly
90% market share globally. Soyeah, it's a bigger target.
Also, of that, and I don't blamenecessarily Microsoft, but
because they have such a bigmarket share, they are also more
reluctant than Apple to removethe problematic and legacy stuff
(13:48):
from their operating system. Andso I guess you guys also, know,
listen to the Security Nowpodcast with Steve Gibson.
And every other week or at leastonce a month is like, how come
Microsoft left this very oldcomponent still in windows
(14:09):
today, right? Years Give
Justin Shelley (14:12):
me an example of that. What's an example?
Damien Schreurs (14:14):
So there was an example in IIS, if I remember
correctly, in one of theepisodes where they had a
component that they left since Idon't remember now which version
of windows but it was Februaryor even before February and yeah
(14:37):
they left it there and the lastone that he mentioned is
something that actuallyMicrosoft isn't acknowledging as
a threat or an issue is with theLNK files. The fact that it's
possible to obfuscate things inthe path of the LNK file and so
(15:00):
now bad guys they just askpeople to download an LNK file.
When you look at the thing, itlooks legit. But actually, no,
it's going to go somewhere else.And you double click and you get
you can potentially get hacked.
Justin Shelley (15:19):
Game over. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe ecosystem of Windows versus
Apple slash Mac. Definitelytighter control on the Apple
side. What are the pros andcons? From security, from end
user, how's that helping andhurting?
Mario Zake (15:40):
Well, I I think from from like a Windows, you know,
point of view, if you wannacreate like a program, you know,
you could create it, test it,and, you know, and run it. You
know, with Mac, you know, youhave to go through a little more
loophole or not loopholes, youknow, security measures. Yeah.
(16:02):
Hoops. Hoops.
That's it. Get it approved thenand and then, you know, put it
on like their their platform andstuff like that. I'm not sure
about the PCs, but I know withlike the iPhones, if you put
something on like the app store,you know, they're also Apple
also wants a share, you know, ofof like the monthly, you know,
(16:28):
cost stuff like that. I'm apositive about the the desktop
versions.
Damien Schreurs (16:34):
Oh, okay. Yeah. So so the big the the the
difference between the iOSplatform and the macOS platform
is that on iOS, it's a littlebit more restricted on which
apps you can run and how toinstall applications. Now,
there's a misconception that theonly way to run apps on iPhone
is through the iOS App Store.There are other ways.
(16:57):
Right? There is one way which isTestFlight.
Mario Zake (17:01):
TestFlight,
Damien Schreurs (17:02):
yeah. It's possible to, and developers use
that TestFlight for beta versionof the applications. But
sometimes bad guys, theyadvertise applications that get
only delivered through testflight. I was once part of a
(17:22):
test program, I had a friend ofmine who had actually a test
application. And yes, there issome automated review of the
app, but it's not as thorough aswhen you submit it to the App
Store.
So there is a little bit moreleeway for malware to go
through. But then there is anentirely different mechanism to
(17:49):
run applications completelyoutside of the App Store. And
this is actually sanctioned byApple in the sense that large
companies, they have internalapplications, that you and I
cannot find on the App Store,but it's for the employees of
(18:10):
the large corporation. They needa mechanism for their employees
to run their iOS app. And sowhat happens is that they sign a
certificate that is also signedby Apple.
That certificate gets installedand it's available in the
(18:30):
settings app on the iPhone. Andthat certificate says this app
can run. And then they have amechanism to install the
application outside from the AppStore. Then you can run the
applications like that. Meta gotcaught using that scheme to so
(18:55):
they they were, like, rewardingstudents with gift cards and
stuff like that to installbasically spyware.
Meta created an that was able tocollect much more information
than a traditionally sandboxedapp on an iPhone. And yeah, I
Justin Shelley (19:20):
wish I was surprised. I listen, we're gonna
tangent for a second. There'sall the the talk about TikTok
and the spyware and how bad itis and the evil Chinese and I'm
not I don't know that I havemuch of an opinion there other
than every one of us is packingaround a device that is spyware
period. That's all it is. It'sall it is.
It listens to everything we saywhether it's Facebook or Google
(19:44):
or TikTok. Oh my god, it'sgathering all the information. I
don't know. Let's dig into thisfor a second because one of the
pushbacks that is becoming moreand more common is why do I
care? If I'm not doing anythingbad, why do I care?
What are your thoughts on that?
Mario Zake (20:02):
I mean, I I kinda have that same mentality. Like,
I never really uninstalled, youknow, TikTok off my phone. I I'm
I kinda have an addiction withTikTok to be if you ask my wife.
But, you know, it's you know,like, I I don't have anything on
there that, you know, there thatthat if it gets leaked that I'm
(20:26):
not secured, you know, securingthat it would be a problem, you
know.
Justin Shelley (20:32):
Just the mindset of I don't have anything to
hide, I don't care about myprivacy. In general, not TikTok
specific cause you know thisthis came up as Facebook using
kind of a side door, back door,whatever you wanna call it, that
Apple allows. They're they'reviolating or misusing an Apple
(20:55):
system, right? To do things thatApple does not want them to do.
Damien Schreurs (21:00):
Yeah, by the way, but Apple revoked their
certificate.
Justin Shelley (21:03):
Oh, really?
Damien Schreurs (21:04):
Yeah, yeah. And for two days, nobody at Meta
could use any applications,internal applications.
Justin Shelley (21:12):
That's funny.
Damien Schreurs (21:13):
And this was like, I think they understood.
They understood. They crossedthe line that they should not
have.
Justin Shelley (21:19):
That's funny. I love that. I actually
Mario Zake (21:22):
love that.
Damien Schreurs (21:23):
To come back, because I talked about iOS,
right? But on macOS, this iswhere macOS is a little bit less
secure, in the sense that thereare three kinds of applications
that we can install. We caninstall application from the Mac
App Store, the same way that wehave the Windows Store now. And
those applications need to beapproved by Apple. And then we
(21:48):
have what they called identifieddevelopers.
And what happens is that thedeveloper needs to register with
Apple. And the applications arecalled notarized. So again,
there is a certificatemechanism, which means that the
(22:13):
developer can then publish theapp on the website. I can
download the app, install theapp. The operating system will
see that it's notarized, willrecognize the certificate, will
let it run.
And that also allows Apple and Idon't know on the Microsoft side
if it's possible. But that meansthat for those kinds of
(22:35):
applications, whether it's AppStore or notarized, Apple is a
kill switch, right? If theyrealize an application is
malware, they can kill it on allMac platforms, all Mac hardware.
Because the next time somebodywill double click on it to run
(22:56):
it, it will not run, it will beprevented from running. And then
you have the applications thatare not notarized.
And there Apple has slightly andover time increased the security
of the system. Until the latestversion which is Sequoia, the
(23:22):
trick was you right click on theapp and you say open. So people
will double click and if youdouble click you will get a pop
up that says not authorized byApple or not authorized. You
will not be able to run it. Sobasic users normally are
(23:44):
protected.
Advanced users know, rightclick, open, and it opens. And
obviously, the bad guys, what dothey do? They explain. Yeah,
yeah. Please, You
Justin Shelley (23:56):
have to right click this one. Yeah.
Damien Schreurs (23:58):
So what happened, what Apple has done is
with Sequoia now, you can stilldo right click open, but it will
not open, it will give you a popup message telling you to go to
the settings app. And in thesettings app, you have to click
on a button to allow the the appto run the
Mario Zake (24:18):
same time. And this is where it gets crazy because
you go into settings and thenyou have to turn on like the the
file and recorder, then you haveto turn you know, especially
with just like security tools,you know, like SentinelOne, we
use SentinelOne for all oursystems.
Damien Schreurs (24:39):
Mhmm.
Mario Zake (24:39):
And you have to go into 11 different spots and
allow it, and then put in thepassword, then, you know, go
somewhere else, allow it, put inyour password, Allow it, put it
in your password. Stop, drop,and roll, and then pray that it
will show up. And it doesn't. Itdoesn't show up. It doesn't
(25:02):
work.
And then you have and then theykeep changing where they put so
I you can't even document stuffaccurately because by next
month, they've moved everything,you know, where it was. And it's
like, oh my god.
Damien Schreurs (25:19):
I've stopped preparing training material on
Apple and making screenshotsbecause every year and sometimes
every six months, I had tochange all the screenshots. And
I was like, forget forget it.I'm gonna do coaching.
Mario Zake (25:31):
Yeah. And don't get me wrong. Like, it it you know,
if if you have, like, an like,some things with Apple are
awesome. Like, you know,AirDrop. I love that you can
just AirDrop, like a picturefrom your phone to your your
computer or vice versa.
You know, if you have an Applephone with a MacBook, you can,
(25:52):
you know, text message will cometo both of them. Know, I do have
an Apple watch, you know.
Justin Shelley (25:57):
A demo, Mario.
Mario Zake (25:58):
It's just the PC. The the the this the Windows
product, you know. And then youknow what? They don't have it
anymore, but Windows used tomake phones, you know. I
would've I would've probablywent with a Windows phone and a
Windows watch if they made it.
There's a good reason they quitmaking those. Those were
terrible.
Damien Schreurs (26:17):
I had one. Remember the Zune? Remember the
Zune?
Mario Zake (26:21):
Yes. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So but the and in, know,
Damian, that's why in in like meand my guys, that's where we
like we cringe when we get aphone call from somebody that
that's on a Mac, know.
And and the thing is, you know,they wanna use like three
Microsoft three sixty five. Theywanna use exchange email. Guess
(26:46):
what? They don't like playingwell together. You know, they
you know, even if you just wantyour emails, they don't play
well together and that's theproblem.
Damien Schreurs (26:57):
And yeah, and it's getting worse and worse. So
all the, all my clients, the,some of my clients are actually
fully into the Microsoft threesixty five ecosystem. For them,
and I have one client, time shecalls me, I ask her, did you use
(27:17):
the Apple Mail app or did youuse Outlook? And every time she
says, no. No.
I'm using the Apple Mail app.And every time I have to say her
to tell her, stop using theApple Mail app. Use Outlook.
Right? If somebody wants to doMicrosoft three sixty five on a
Mac, Outlook is the best foremail calendar contact because,
(27:40):
unfortunately, it has degradedover time.
The the synchronization is notworking as well as as before.
Mario Zake (27:48):
Yeah. Yeah. And I I agree. And like just yesterday,
I was on a Mac, you know, clientwith with Mac. He has full
Office three sixty fiveinstalled.
He can, you know, open up Word,he can open up Excel, he you
know, Outlook, we're trying toadd his email. He logs in, puts
in his password, puts in his twofactor authentication, and then
(28:12):
it spins, spins, spins, spins,and it just doesn't go. And then
you have to kill it and try itagain and says, oh, do you wanna
register? And you say yes. Andthen it comes up with no.
It just came up with an answerthat just said no. And I'm like,
what the fuck?
Justin Shelley (28:31):
Oh, god. This is, Thank you, Steve Jobs. Rest
in peace. Anyways, guys, sookay. Mario, you kinda touched
on one that I wanted to talkabout is where where I believe
that as the as the Mac neutralguy here, that where I do think
that Mac is, I don't wanna saybehind, but definitely where
(28:55):
there might be a vulnerabilityis that there are fewer
resources.
So number one, they're betterbecause they have a smaller
footprint and they aren't as bigof a target for the bad guys.
Right? But that comes withpayload. And the problem with
that is there aren't as manyeffective mainstream security
tools for Mac. At least that'smy experience.
(29:15):
Damian, what are your thoughtson that? Is that true or false?
Damien Schreurs (29:19):
It's partly true. So I'm using Sophos and
I'm installing Sophos on all thecomputers, and Sophos is multi
platform. It's one of the lessresource intensive anti malware
on the Mac. The built insecurity of macOS is much worse
(29:45):
than the built in than thanMicrosoft Defender. Right?
Nowadays, Microsoft Defender,most people could just live with
that.
Justin Shelley (29:54):
It's pretty solid.
Damien Schreurs (29:55):
I know it's not % perfect, but it's a very good
product.
Justin Shelley (29:59):
Yeah.
Damien Schreurs (30:00):
Whereas the built in gatekeeper and Xprotect
on the Mac is laughable. Thenumber of it's 20 something
families of malware onlynatively recognized. Right? So
for me, Sophos immediately andthat's to give you an idea, the
(30:22):
home version of Sophos istotally free, three computers.
It doesn't have advancedprotection like anti ransomware,
but it has the basiccapabilities.
I pay very, I don't remember howmuch is very like $45 per year
(30:48):
or something. Ridiculous, theprice and it covers 10 computers
max or pcs by the way so it'sboth right I have one of my
daughters has a gaming pc soit's protected I'm doing IT
training on Microsoft Office. Ihave a PC, have a Lenovo
(31:11):
ThinkPad.
Mario Zake (31:12):
Databoy.
Justin Shelley (31:15):
Good old Wow. We're all friends again.
Damien Schreurs (31:20):
We're It has obviously Sophos on it as well.
And with Sophos, can do webcammonitoring, microphone
monitoring. What else can I do?Yeah. Anti ransomware.
So it continuously checks on theMac whether files are getting
encrypted or not which in somecases is a problem because yeah
(31:44):
some applications tend toencrypt data locally and so
forth Sometimes there are somefalse negatives. But yeah, and
I'm sorry, and I wanted to sayso there is a guy called Patrick
Wardle. I don't remember, heworked for CISA on the NSA or
(32:09):
something like that. And he's aMac guy. And he has a bunch of
tools.
Patrick Warder, I'm going toquickly Objective C, it's called
Objective C and the tools thereis toolbox for mac is incredible
(32:34):
right so I've installed anapplication that checks every
time that there is a new ipconnection from an app and I can
block the IP connection. So Imonitor whenever an app does a
web request. I have also anapplication that checks whether
(32:57):
an application installssomething as a login item or
yeah and stuff like that. Soyeah, for people or the
listeners who are on Mac and whoare a bit tech savvy, go and see
objectivec.org. You will find alot of useful security.
Justin Shelley (33:20):
And you're saying c as in the letter, not
the ocean, right? Objectivedash?
Damien Schreurs (33:24):
C s e e. Like
Justin Shelley (33:26):
Oh, like to like the vision. Vision. Okay.
Damien Schreurs (33:28):
Vision. Yes. Objective.
Justin Shelley (33:30):
Because while you were talking, I did a quick
Google search and I came up witha programming language. So
there's many ways we can gowrong here. But Damien, so I
wanna I wanna talk a little bitabout you're you're kind of
identifying another problem thatthe Mac world faces is because
you're talking about for thetech savvy user and you just
(33:50):
explain stuff that is gonna goover almost everybody's head
Mhmm. That just the averagecomputer user. Right?
And to one of the problems thatApple has created in my
experience is they've kind ofkept us from becoming or
promoting ourselves as Macexperts. And I haven't done this
(34:11):
recently, but I will tell youthat years ago, I started
running some Google ads that weworked on Macintosh computers.
Apple shut me down. So Icouldn't even advertise that I
would work on their productsbecause they wanted to push
everybody to the genius bar.
Damien Schreurs (34:28):
Wow.
Justin Shelley (34:29):
You know, and and I'm not talking about
consumers. I'm trying to helpbusinesses. Mhmm. And I don't
know if that's changed. I'm justlike, fuck it guys.
Like if you don't want help thenfine. You I'll you come to me
and ask if I work on Mac. Yes, Ido. My company does. We will
help you.
I I do feel proficient in thatworld even though we do have all
the problems that Mario istalking about. Yes, things
(34:50):
change. But Mario, I hate tobreak it to you. That is the
world of technology. Everythingchanges all the time everywhere,
which is honestly something thatkeeps me entertained as a self
diagnosed ADHD person.
Mario Zake (35:02):
Well, Justin, it's they're changing stuff that's
kind of annoying that they'rechanging. Like, you know, like,
my wife like, told you, my wife,she's a Mac. She's she loves
Mac, you know, and she will geta new, like, MacBook Pro or
MacBook Air or whatever the hellit's called now. And, you know,
(35:24):
through her company, they'll gether a new laptop every two
years. So she she keeps gettingthem and whatever even and and,
you know, they'll they'll allwork fine.
But every time she's getting anew one, it's different
chargers. You know? Like, one ismagnetic, and then one is not
magnetic, then one you one isUSB c, and then they go back to
(35:44):
magnetic. And it's like, whatthe fuck, guys? Like, and I you
know, and she's and of course,my wife tells me, Mario, could
you go upstairs and get mycharger?
I come down with like sevenchargers and guess what? None of
them work.
Justin Shelley (35:59):
Right. Okay. But I'm I've I gotta push back
because I have I threw it awayfinally, but I had like a great
big case of Windows machinecharger, laptop chargers that
were all different and that byevery every goddamn manufacturer
has 20 different versions oftheir own chargers. So
Mario Zake (36:16):
That is true. That is true.
Justin Shelley (36:17):
I I mean, I hear you and dot dot dot. I'm not
sure how much different it is.But I I will just say like
technology is a pain. I honestlybelieve that this is a Ford
Chevy situation. I think if youare in the Mac world, you do
come with a little bit of rosecolored glasses where you do
believe everything Mac is greatand everything Windows is shit.
(36:41):
And vice versa as Mario isgreatly pointing out today, that
goes both ways. Here is what Ibelieve. This is the last thing
I wanna talk about and thenwe're gonna move to wrap this
up. Here's what I believe to bethe number one problem with
Macintosh computers wheresecurity is concerned. And I'm
gonna put this in quotes becauseI hear it all the time.
(37:01):
Macs are more secure. That Ibelieve is the problem. I
believe mindset is the problemthat that because because Mac
users believe that true or not,it doesn't matter. What it does
mean is they are less apt tohave security software. And I
love Damien that you're pointingout Sophos.
I'm going to look into more intothat one. I'm I use other
(37:23):
software and I guess I won'tplug names, but I also see a lot
of Macs that are unpatched. Andwhen I was doing research for
this episode, found, you know,patching is one of the places
where Apple shines becausewindow does it all the time.
It's annoying so people don't doit. You know how many Macs I
find that are fully patched?
Never. I don't see it and it'ssupposed to be automatic, it's
(37:44):
supposed to be easy. I don't seethat. But I do think again,
coming back to this mindsetproblem, we're better, we don't
have to worry about it. That'sour last topic.
Damian first, then Mario, whatare your thoughts on this one?
Damien Schreurs (37:58):
Yeah, it's a complete total misconception. I
see that every time I talk toother Mac users. They falsely
believe that because they have aMac it's immune to any kind of
malware or stuff like that.That's bullshit. And there is
another problem and somethingthat actually I'm seeing now
(38:21):
more and more because Apple hasbeen quite pushing new features
all the time.
Number one, macOS is gettingbuggier and buggier. So they are
implementing, they have theWindows It or something like
that. They have I call that thewindowsification of macOS
(38:47):
unfortunately. That's the paththat Apple has taken,
Justin Shelley (38:52):
right? Interesting.
Damien Schreurs (38:54):
Releasing more new features than fixing
existing bugs.
Mario Zake (39:00):
And
Damien Schreurs (39:01):
as a consequence, some people now are
afraid of upgrading andupdating. And from my side, I
know that it's important toupgrade so I would still give a
gold star to Apple in the sensethat Apple supports the last
(39:27):
three version of the operatingsystem. So they continue
offering still security updateson so the latest one are at the
time of recording is Sequoia,and then the one before Sonoma,
and one Ventura. These threeversions still are getting
patched. Okay.
Which is unheard of in theMicrosoft and the Windows world.
(39:50):
So that's where I would sayApple shines. On the flip side,
they've been so aggressive withnew features that myself I'm
still on Ventura because I knowthat if I go to Sonoma I'm gonna
maybe regret it a little bit andI avoid at all costs, the latest
(40:13):
version of macOS. And in mymind, installing the latest
version of macOS right when it'sreleased, so in September,
October, is a security risk.Yeah, because there are so many
bugs and unpatchedvulnerabilities, unknown
vulnerabilities.
(40:34):
And also from a userperspective, because people
think security equals malware.No. If you lose data, if if
preview, which is the equivalentof Adobe PDF, overwrite stuff,
remove the OCR because it hashappened in the past and people
(40:55):
have lost the OCR portions oftheir PDFs just by opening them
after the upgrade. It's likenice. Nice.
Mario Zake (41:05):
Not to mention that I remember I mentioned this to
my cousins, my two cousins thatI'm really close with. I'm like,
every time I update my phonebefore the new iPhone comes out,
all of a sudden my phone startsgetting really, really slow. And
(41:27):
they looked at me, they're like,you're a conspiracy theorist.
You're crazy. You're, you know,you're absolutely nuts.
That's not true. And I said itfor years.
Damien Schreurs (41:37):
I'm like I confirm. I confirm. I have the
same experience.
Mario Zake (41:41):
Yeah. And guess what? All of a sudden Mac gets
hit with this billions billiondollar lawsuit that they were
doing it on purpose. Of course.They were purposely slowing down
Justin Shelley (41:54):
Of everything
Mario Zake (41:54):
that I know of their phones because the new they
wanted to push you to the newone. And that's that kinda but,
know, I am still I I I'm stillan iPhone user. I like the blue
bubbles. I don't like the greenbubbles when I'm texting. Coming
(42:15):
back to security, I mean, Ithink they're more secure
because nobody knows how tofreaking install anything on
there without actually, youknow, like we're we're you know,
I can tell you this, I thinkhalf our Macs are probably like,
we have half the antivirusinstalled because when we
install it, we have to gothrough five more steps.
(42:37):
And I think we my guys areprobably going through three and
then just say, fuck it. I don'tknow what else to do. You know?
Like but, you know, it's youknow, it it it is comes back to
a lot of what I said earlier aswell. Like they are just as
vulnerable, but hackers andstuff like that, they're gonna
go after the bigger part of thepie, the 80% of the people out
(43:04):
there, even just throughcustomers of mine.
A lot of them, a lot of thebigger offices, 20 or more
users, the majority of thecomputers will be Windows based
computers. And then you'll havethe random owners that wanna use
(43:25):
a Mac, they're the ones that getthe Mac computer. So they're
going to go after the 80%because it's a numbers game.
They send out spam, stuff likethat, it's a numbers game.
Justin Shelley (43:39):
Well, Mario, you're absolutely right. I think
there's two categories that themain categories that the hackers
are targeting. And one is thisgreat big target. It's more
efficient that way, but theother one I think is this
mindset of I'm not vulnerable.Right?
(44:00):
And and and that is where likeWindows is more at risk because
there's more of them, it's moreeconomical, cost effective for
people to attack Windows. Butit's also I believe a lot of Mac
users are an easier targetbecause of this mindset that,
you know, it's not gonna happento me. Don't have to worry about
it.
Mario Zake (44:18):
They think they're bulletproof.
Justin Shelley (44:21):
Yeah. Damon, any final thoughts on that one?
Damien Schreurs (44:25):
No. It's it's really yeah. It's and I don't
have the numbers but I don'tknow many Mac users, so current
Mac user, the user base, howmany came from the iPhone and
the iPad and how many are longtime Mac users because I believe
(44:50):
that when you come from theiPhone or the iPad it's easy to
have this false sense ofsecurity
Justin Shelley (44:58):
right
Damien Schreurs (44:58):
because the iPhone and on any mobile
platform it's same with Androidright the security mechanisms
are much tighter on those mobileplatforms because they learned
and they implemented that andreduced the footprint. And so
(45:19):
maybe that's part of it. But Ialso I'm sure the old guard, the
old Mac guard, they believe theyare yeah. It's it's impossible
to to break them. To break
Mario Zake (45:33):
them That's a good point. Yeah. I I think you're
right. I think because of theiOS, you know, iPad or the
iPhone, people more people aregoing to like the MacBooks and,
know, have that mentality like,oh, this thing's indestructible.
Justin Shelley (45:50):
Right.
Mario Zake (45:51):
Yeah. It's a good point.
Justin Shelley (45:53):
All right guys, I think we've beat to death the
differences between the two.We're we're running out of time
guys. This has been fun andwe've been a little long winded
here. So let's very quickly justtalk about because in in some
ways security is security and itdoesn't matter how you access
your information. Ultimately, ifyour information isn't safe,
you're in trouble.
If your money isn't safe, you'rein trouble. So Damian, I'll I'll
(46:17):
go
Mario Zake (46:17):
to you first, Mario and and these are kind of final
thoughts, then we'll we'll do
Justin Shelley (46:21):
key key takeaways and and we're out. So
Damian, where do you see thesecurity or the problems being
the same regardless of platform?
Damien Schreurs (46:31):
So for me it's the fact that most people run as
administrator and when are whenyou only have one user account
obviously it makes sense and Idon't remember the exact figure
in my mind it's like 90% of mostattacks could be stopped if
(46:53):
people were running with astandard account or with less
privileges. And I see that allthe time on the Mac with my
business clients or mysolopreneur clients. That's the
first thing we do, we create astandard account. Well, no,
(47:14):
yeah, we know, I create anotheradmin account, a second admin
account. We log into that adminaccount, the owner knows the
password of that admin account,obviously, right?
Justin Shelley (47:25):
She
Damien Schreurs (47:26):
needs to be in control, but then goes to the
admin account and reduces theprivileges of the main account.
And then goes back to the mainaccount. And yes, it's a little
bit less convenient becauseevery time they want to install
an app that is outside of theApp Store, or they want to make
changes in the settings app,they then have to remember,
(47:49):
okay, that's the user account,the admin user account, the
admin password. But I believe itincreases tremendously the
security of their Mac. And Ibelieve it is the same on
Windows platform.
Justin Shelley (48:04):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely a big problem. Yeah.
Big problem.
And I will just point out herethat if security isn't a pain in
your ass, you're not doing itright. So yes, there are
inconveniences that come withsecurity. But there's a bigger
inconvenience which comes withan empty bank account because
somebody got in and stole it oryou're being sued because you
weren't protecting your clientsinformation. So Mario, final
(48:26):
thoughts on Mac versus PC as farbut really it's where are they
the same? Where are the problemsthe same?
Mario Zake (48:33):
Yeah, kind of agree with what Damian said, you still
have to be cautious, you stillhave to take those same you
know, security measures ofcreating different, you know,
usernames, you know, stillrunning an antivirus, you know,
something that's gonna protectyou, you know, real you know,
(48:54):
from real attacks. You can'tlive feeling like, hey, I'm I'm
untouchable, you know, becauseno matter what, they are just as
vulnerable. You know, you can'tthink that because you're a part
of the 20% that, you know, thatit nothing out there is gonna
hurt you, you know. Right.You're you're not running under
(49:16):
the radar.
It's just like we've said it,Justin, for years now, it's not
a matter of if it's a matter ofone because eventually, you
know, people are gonna realizelike, hey, you know, these guys
aren't even protectingthemselves, you know. So, you
know, be smart, you know, andand take the proper steps to to
stay secure.
Justin Shelley (49:37):
Yeah. And, you know, while I've been picking on
the the mindset of Mac usersthat they believe to themselves
to be more secure, the samecould be said of every human on
the planet. And this is actuallyone of the the great things
about our brains and also thebiggest vulnerability about how
we think and operate as humans.There are so many risks out
there. If we worried about everysingle one of them, we would be
(50:01):
frozen out of fear.
And so we have to learn to tellourselves that we're not going
to die when we get in our car,even though people do every
single day. We have to be ableto convince ourselves that when
we turn our computer on, we'regoing to be safe, otherwise we
wouldn't do it, we wouldn't runbusinesses. So it's a truth,
(50:21):
it's a problem, it's also how wesurvive and we just have to
learn to balance that andmitigate it. That's kind of
where I believe they're the sameon both guys. This is gonna be
our our final thirty seconds keytakeaway, Mario you're gonna go
first if people listen to onlythis from our entire episode,
what would you want them to hearfrom Mario Zackey?
Mario Zake (50:42):
That no matter what, you have to stay safe. Don't
bother creating tutorials, youknow, to to help your people
for, you know, get around theMac because they're just gonna
turn on and change it a coupledays later.
Justin Shelley (50:57):
I thought you'd say something like that. Damian,
final thoughts.
Damien Schreurs (51:02):
For me, it's just simply Macs are not more
secure than Windows PCs. And youhave any computer actually, the
computer platform itself is lesssecure than the mobile device
platform. So I would encouragepeople to have a kind of a
(51:23):
different mindset when theythink about their mobile phone,
their smartphone versus theircomputer.
Justin Shelley (51:30):
Right. Okay. And, again, you know, I love I
love that you are serving thisunderserved segment of the
market. The solopreneur ingeneral Mac users, there aren't
as many of them, but absolutelyneed the help as much as any of
us do. So thank you for that,guys.
If if you would like to learnmore about Damian and Damian,
(51:51):
say your last name one moretime. Sure. I'm not gonna try
it.
Mario Zake (51:56):
Go to Macpreneur dot com. And, guys,
Justin Shelley (51:58):
this this is even a a mouthful.
Macpreneur.com. And if you can'tspell that or sound it out, then
go to unhacked.live where wehave links to Damian, all of his
social media platforms, and hispodcast. Damian, thank you so
much for being here. Reallyappreciate it.
Love the banter. Love theinsights.
Mario Zake (52:16):
Again, thank you. Thank you very much for being a
great support. Thank you forjoining us.
Damien Schreurs (52:21):
Thank you for having having me.
Justin Shelley (52:23):
And Mario, as always, thank you for being
here, guys. We're gonna Thankyou.
Mario Zake (52:26):
We're gonna wrap for this week. Everybody say
goodbye.
Justin Shelley (52:29):
Take care. We'll see you next time. Goodbye,
guys.
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