49. Mac or PC? Mario and Damien Duke it out in This Epic Battle of Who Is More Secure
Welcome everybody to episode 49 of Unhacked. Guys, today, we are going to get down dirty and maybe even bloody. We're gonna talk about Apple products versus Windows. We've got a special guest here today to help us break that one down. We've got an Apple lover.
Justin Shelley:We've got an Apple hater, and we've got an Apple neutral. So with that, here we go, guys. Unhacked is a bit of a deliberate misnomer. The reality is we can prevent breaches way easier than we can unhack them. So once you get
Mario Zake:hit, it's really hard to come back. There's financial loss. There's emotional emotional costs. There's reputation damage. So we're gonna stay always on the the hope, the wish, the
Justin Shelley:dream that we can prevent all these things.
Mario Zake:That's what we're here to talk about. Apply the basics. Keep the bad guys out. And then
Justin Shelley:we have never have to get into this world where we're trying to restore because, god, that's just a mess.
Mario Zake:So here we go. I am Justin Shelley, CEO of Phoenix IT Advisors. And like I said, I
Justin Shelley:keep people's bank accounts safe from Russian hackers, from government fines and audits and penalties, and from attorneys who want to
Mario Zake:come around and sue you after you've been breached.
Justin Shelley:That's what I do. I do work in Texas, Nevada and Utah. As always, I'm here with Mario. Mario, tell people who you are, what you do and who you do it for.
Mario Zake:Mario Zake, CEO of Mastech IT. We are located right outside of Manhattan in New Jersey and been business for twenty one years now, helping small to medium sized Windows users from staying safe and protected and sleep better at night.
Justin Shelley:So I was gonna say Mario, are you the Windows oh, sorry. Are you the Mac lover, 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.
Justin Shelley:And with that, we're gonna go ahead and introduce today's special guest. Today we have Damian 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 going to try. Damian where are you from?
Mario Zake:Belgium is that what you said?
Damien Schreurs:I'm Belgian, but I'm living in Luxembourg.
Mario Zake:There we go. Shows you about I
Justin Shelley: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, I could say I'm not a geologist.
Justin Shelley:Really show my ignorance. Okay, so Damian is the explainer in chief of easy tech company providing IT training and coaching on topics like Mario, you're gonna love this Apple products. Oh, Microsoft Office. Okay, so we've some neutral ground. Cybersecurity, we can all agree on that one.
Justin Shelley:And all things artificial intelligence, AI. While doing that, Damian, I believe you also have a podcast. What's the name of your podcast?
Damien Schreurs:Yes. Macpreneur.
Justin Shelley:Macpreneur podcast. How many episodes do you have now?
Damien Schreurs:I've released 137 today.
Justin Shelley:One thirty seven?
Damien Schreurs:Yes. One thirty seven. Oh, nice.
Mario Zake:We gotta get our act together. He's kicking our ass. Yeah. We need to do it like twice a days.
Justin Shelley:I know. Yeah. We're gonna have to catch up. Anyways, Damian, thank you for being here. Tell me a little bit about your podcast, what you talk about on there.
Damien Schreurs:Yeah. So it's the podcast for solopreneurs who cannot imagine running their business on anything else than a Mac. So the opposite of Mario, basically. And, yeah, I help them. My goal is to help them be more productive more efficient so that they can save time save money and obviously cyber security is one way for me to the way I look at cyber security is a little bit like an insurance, It's you actually prevent the loss of time and the loss of money that could happen in the future.
Justin Shelley:Absolutely. Yeah. So a little bit different. We are our audience is small to midsize businesses and everybody's got a different definition of that. So, know, usually on the lower end, it might be five or 10 employees on the upper end, we might be 100, two hundred, even 300 employees.
Justin Shelley:Your focus as a solopreneur, tell me a little bit about why you chose that audience.
Damien Schreurs:So first of all, because I'm a solopreneur myself.
Justin Shelley:Okay.
Damien Schreurs:And so I believe that I'm well equipped, am knowledgeable about the challenges of being a solo business owner and having to, in my case, being on the Apple platform since 02/2007. So I've had a $9.25 for a Fortune 500 American company here in Luxembourg, and obviously it was PCs. And for me, I was on PCs until 2016. But on the personal side, 02/2007 is when I actually started to fully migrate at home to the Mac platform. So I have experience with both platforms.
Damien Schreurs:And yeah the reason why I went solopreneur is also because it's like, I don't know, from which number of employees do you see companies having IT staff really in house? In house probably
Mario Zake:50 plus. Anywhere between depending on the industry but yeah between 50 to 100.
Justin Shelley:And really it's trending more to outsourcing even on the larger organizations.
Mario Zake:Or at least co manage. Right.
Damien Schreurs:Because when started, I started providing IT services as well, so consulting. And I realized that very quickly, and it was a very small business, it's like 10 or less. And I became the IT guy. You can fix it, if you can if you can teach someone how to use a computer, you supposed to also be able to fix the printer, fix the fax, fix everything.
Mario Zake:Wiring, mount the TV, take care of the phone system.
Damien Schreurs:Exactly. And actually, I hated that because when I left corporate, I wanted to have freedom. Wanted to have a bit of time freedom. And to suddenly become the firefighter for small businesses was not the life that I was imagining. So, yeah, for me going solopreneur and also going more on the teaching side of things, which is why at EZTEC now I'm focusing on IT training.
Damien Schreurs:And one of the things is cyber security awareness, smartphone security awareness trainings. Yes.
Justin Shelley:I love it. Honestly the solopreneur category is one that is very underserved in the IT community general. IT, cybersecurity, whatever. In fact I do serve that market, at least I don't market to them because it's very expensive to gain new clients and you never make it the money back, which is why IT companies generally don't serve that that market sadly. That said, I do have a few.
Justin Shelley:Well, hang on. Hang on. I gotta start. No, this this poor sweet lady was just just breached not long ago, called me up and we had to
Mario Zake:go in and clean things up. She'd lost some money.
Justin Shelley:But it does it illustrates exactly why this market is so important. So I'm I love that you are serving that. There we go. Mario, I'm done with my speech. Go ahead.
Mario Zake:So Damian, if you're working with somebody and they hire a new employee, do you get rid of them or not too big.
Justin Shelley:I my drink out. God damn it, Mario. You're fired. Oh, famous words of our current president.
Mario Zake:No. It it is. It's it's it is very hard to, you know, work with single, you know, person because also you don't want to, you know, they they tend to be a little more price conscious because, you know, they they feel like they want, you know, they're not always having problems where if you're in a working with a company that's like 20 users, you could it's safe to say that at least daily or every other day or, you know, every you know, a couple times a week, somebody's gonna have something that you need to to to help with. So the single ones are definitely underserved. So you know, that's good.
Damien Schreurs:Yeah, my solo client, it's really mainly what I call coaching. It's not truly coaching, but it's between training and consulting. And I'm always I'm a bit pickier now with my clients. I really want clients who want to learn, right? So that if they have a problem and they call me, I will teach them how to fix, how to notice a problem and how to fix the problem so that the next time they could do it by themselves.
Damien Schreurs:And Well,
Mario Zake:you definitely keep yourself busy because with Macs, they're constantly moving things and changing, you know, the the where things are. You know, once you finally get the hang of it, they just change it on you again. So I I could see how you you you know, you stay busy. So that's good.
Justin Shelley:Unlike Microsoft who never changes anything. Alright, Mario. Come on. You can do better on that. Listen.
Justin Shelley:I I will out myself as the Mac neutral member of the group and I don't wanna brag, but I've been using window or sorry, Apple products since like nineteen eighty something with the Apple two e. So my I cut my teeth on Apple so I can't hate on them too hard. But we've mean, don't get
Mario Zake:me wrong. I I have an Apple phone, know.
Justin Shelley:Oh, shit. Mario.
Mario Zake:I love the phone.
Justin Shelley:Love the
Mario Zake:phone. Wife will only work with Mac OS, so it's, we battle all the time at the house.
Justin Shelley:I've never had to kick somebody off before. I'm trying to figure out how to like close out your feed right now.
Mario Zake:Alright, guys. The the computers itself, you know, that's a battle I I don't wanna get into.
Justin Shelley:Well, tough shit. Because here we go. So here guys is the question of the day. Damian, are Apple products more secure? Yes or no?
Justin Shelley:True or false?
Damien Schreurs:No. No. They are not people. Are not more secure.
Mario Zake:Guys, and that's a wrap. Thank you
Justin Shelley:for joining us. We will see you next time. Take care.
Mario Zake:We win. We win.
Justin Shelley:All right. Okay. So listen, a little bit of background when before each of these episodes, when we bring on a guest, I always have a just a short interview with them initially, right ahead of time. And then like, well, let's figure out what we're gonna talk about and stuff like that. First question I asked Damian was, are Apple products more secure?
Justin Shelley:And I fully expected him to say yes. And then I was just going say, all right, deuces, we're out. But he didn't, he passed the test. He said, no, they're not. So today, Damian, I want to pick your brain and I want to really dig into this in all seriousness.
Justin Shelley:I do believe that there are strengths and weaknesses on both sides and that's what I want to dig into. So where is Windows more vulnerable? Where is Windows more secure? Same question for Macintosh, Apple, iPhone, whatever. Where is it more vulnerable?
Justin Shelley:Where is it more secure? And then 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 specific to hardware and software operating system, have you, some of it's not. So guys, let's jump in. And I'm just gonna throw this out for open discussion. Where is Windows worse?
Justin Shelley:Mario, you can't talk here because you love them so much.
Mario Zake:No. I mean, Windows, you know, obviously, it's you know, me personally, if I was a hacker, right, and I'm going to go and create something, I'm gonna create it for the larger market share. Right. 75, 80 percent of the market. And that's where it's worse.
Mario Zake:It's more easily distributed and, 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 Windows is.
Justin Shelley:Okay. Damian, what are your thoughts on that?
Damien Schreurs:Yeah. So the the installed base is roughly 90% market share globally. So yeah, it's a bigger target. Also, of that, and I don't blame necessarily Microsoft, but because they have such a big market share, they are also more reluctant than Apple to remove the problematic and legacy stuff from their operating system. And so I guess you guys also, know, listen to the Security Now podcast with Steve Gibson.
Damien Schreurs:And every other week or at least once a month is like, how come Microsoft left this very old component still in windows today, right? Years Give
Justin Shelley:me an example of that. What's an example?
Damien Schreurs:So there was an example in IIS, if I remember correctly, in one of the episodes where they had a component that they left since I don't remember now which version of windows but it was February or even before February and yeah they left it there and the last one that he mentioned is something that actually Microsoft isn't acknowledging as a threat or an issue is with the LNK files. The fact that it's possible to obfuscate things in the path of the LNK file and so now bad guys they just ask people to download an LNK file. When you look at the thing, it looks 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:Game over. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Justin Shelley:Let's talk a little bit about the ecosystem of Windows versus Apple slash Mac. Definitely tighter control on the Apple side. What are the pros and cons? From security, from end user, how's that helping and hurting?
Mario Zake:Well, I I think from from like a Windows, you know, point of view, if you wanna create like a program, you know, you could create it, test it, and, you know, and run it. You know, with Mac, you know, you have to go through a little more loophole or not loopholes, you know, security measures. Yeah. Hoops. Hoops.
Mario Zake:That's it. Get it approved then and and then, you know, put it on like their their platform and stuff like that. I'm not sure about the PCs, but I know with like the iPhones, if you put something on like the app store, you know, they're also Apple also wants a share, you know, of of like the monthly, you know, cost stuff like that. I'm a positive about the the desktop versions.
Damien Schreurs:Oh, okay. Yeah. So so the big the the the difference between the iOS platform and the macOS platform is that on iOS, it's a little bit more restricted on which apps you can run and how to install applications. Now, there's a misconception that the only way to run apps on iPhone is through the iOS App Store. There are other ways.
Damien Schreurs:Right? There is one way which is TestFlight.
Mario Zake:TestFlight,
Damien Schreurs:yeah. It's possible to, and developers use that TestFlight for beta version of the applications. But sometimes bad guys, they advertise applications that get only delivered through test flight. I was once part of a test program, I had a friend of mine who had actually a test application. And yes, there is some automated review of the app, but it's not as thorough as when you submit it to the App Store.
Damien Schreurs:So there is a little bit more leeway for malware to go through. But then there is an entirely different mechanism to run applications completely outside of the App Store. And this is actually sanctioned by Apple in the sense that large companies, they have internal applications, that you and I cannot find on the App Store, but it's for the employees of the large corporation. They need a mechanism for their employees to run their iOS app. And so what happens is that they sign a certificate that is also signed by Apple.
Damien Schreurs:That certificate gets installed and it's available in the settings app on the iPhone. And that certificate says this app can run. And then they have a mechanism to install the application outside from the App Store. Then you can run the applications like that. Meta got caught using that scheme to so they they were, like, rewarding students with gift cards and stuff like that to install basically spyware.
Damien Schreurs:Meta created an that was able to collect much more information than a traditionally sandboxed app on an iPhone. And yeah, I
Justin Shelley:wish I was surprised. I listen, we're gonna tangent for a second. There's all the the talk about TikTok and the spyware and how bad it is and the evil Chinese and I'm not I don't know that I have much of an opinion there other than every one of us is packing around a device that is spyware period. That's all it is. It's all it is.
Justin Shelley:It listens to everything we say whether it's Facebook or Google or TikTok. Oh my god, it's gathering all the information. I don't know. Let's dig into this for a second because one of the pushbacks that is becoming more and more common is why do I care? If I'm not doing anything bad, why do I care?
Justin Shelley:What are your thoughts on that?
Mario Zake:I mean, I I kinda have that same mentality. Like, I never really uninstalled, you know, TikTok off my phone. I I'm I kinda have an addiction with TikTok 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 that that if it gets leaked that I'm not secured, you know, securing that it would be a problem, you know.
Justin Shelley:Just the mindset of I don't have anything to hide, I don't care about my privacy. In general, not TikTok specific cause you know this this came up as Facebook using kind of a side door, back door, whatever you wanna call it, that Apple allows. They're they're violating or misusing an Apple system, right? To do things that Apple does not want them to do.
Damien Schreurs:Yeah, by the way, but Apple revoked their certificate.
Justin Shelley:Oh, really?
Damien Schreurs:Yeah, yeah. And for two days, nobody at Meta could use any applications, internal applications.
Justin Shelley:That's funny.
Damien Schreurs:And this was like, I think they understood. They understood. They crossed the line that they should not have.
Justin Shelley:That's funny. I love that. I actually
Mario Zake:love that.
Damien Schreurs:To come back, because I talked about iOS, right? But on macOS, this is where macOS is a little bit less secure, in the sense that there are three kinds of applications that we can install. We can install application from the Mac App Store, the same way that we have the Windows Store now. And those applications need to be approved by Apple. And then we have what they called identified developers.
Damien Schreurs:And what happens is that the developer needs to register with Apple. And the applications are called notarized. So again, there is a certificate mechanism, which means that the developer can then publish the app on the website. I can download the app, install the app. The operating system will see that it's notarized, will recognize the certificate, will let it run.
Damien Schreurs:And that also allows Apple and I don't know on the Microsoft side if it's possible. But that means that for those kinds of applications, whether it's App Store or notarized, Apple is a kill switch, right? If they realize an application is malware, they can kill it on all Mac platforms, all Mac hardware. Because the next time somebody will double click on it to run it, it will not run, it will be prevented from running. And then you have the applications that are not notarized.
Damien Schreurs:And there Apple has slightly and over time increased the security of the system. Until the latest version which is Sequoia, the trick was you right click on the app and you say open. So people will double click and if you double click you will get a pop up that says not authorized by Apple or not authorized. You will not be able to run it. So basic users normally are protected.
Damien Schreurs:Advanced users know, right click, open, and it opens. And obviously, the bad guys, what do they do? They explain. Yeah, yeah. Please, You
Justin Shelley:have to right click this one. Yeah.
Damien Schreurs:So what happened, what Apple has done is with Sequoia now, you can still do right click open, but it will not open, it will give you a pop up message telling you to go to the settings app. And in the settings app, you have to click on a button to allow the the app to run the
Mario Zake:same time. And this is where it gets crazy because you go into settings and then you have to turn on like the the file and recorder, then you have to turn you know, especially with just like security tools, you know, like SentinelOne, we use SentinelOne for all our systems.
Damien Schreurs:Mhmm.
Mario Zake:And you have to go into 11 different spots and allow it, and then put in the password, then, you know, go somewhere else, allow it, put in your password, Allow it, put it in your password. Stop, drop, and roll, and then pray that it will show up. And it doesn't. It doesn't show up. It doesn't work.
Mario Zake:And then you have and then they keep changing where they put so I you can't even document stuff accurately because by next month, they've moved everything, you know, where it was. And it's like, oh my god.
Damien Schreurs:I've stopped preparing training material on Apple and making screenshots because every year and sometimes every six months, I had to change all the screenshots. And I was like, forget forget it. I'm gonna do coaching.
Mario Zake: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 picture from your phone to your your computer or vice versa.
Mario Zake:You know, if you have an Apple phone with a MacBook, you can, you know, text message will come to both of them. Know, I do have an Apple watch, you know.
Justin Shelley:A demo, Mario.
Mario Zake:It's just the PC. The the the this the Windows product, you know. And then you know what? They don't have it anymore, but Windows used to make phones, you know. I would've I would've probably went with a Windows phone and a Windows watch if they made it.
Mario Zake:There's a good reason they quit making those. Those were terrible.
Damien Schreurs:I had one. Remember the Zune? Remember the Zune?
Mario Zake:Yes. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So but the and in, know, Damian, that's why in in like me and my guys, that's where we like we cringe when we get a phone call from somebody that that's on a Mac, know.
Mario Zake:And and the thing is, you know, they wanna use like three Microsoft three sixty five. They wanna use exchange email. Guess what? They don't like playing well together. You know, they you know, even if you just want your emails, they don't play well together and that's the problem.
Damien Schreurs: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 three sixty five ecosystem. For them, and I have one client, time she calls me, I ask her, did you use the Apple Mail app or did you use Outlook? And every time she says, no. No.
Damien Schreurs:I'm using the Apple Mail app. And every time I have to say her to tell her, stop using the Apple Mail app. Use Outlook. Right? If somebody wants to do Microsoft three sixty five on a Mac, Outlook is the best for email calendar contact because, unfortunately, it has degraded over time.
Damien Schreurs:The the synchronization is not working as well as as before.
Mario Zake:Yeah. Yeah. And I I agree. And like just yesterday, I was on a Mac, you know, client with with Mac. He has full Office three sixty five installed.
Mario Zake:He can, you know, open up Word, he can open up Excel, he you know, Outlook, we're trying to add his email. He logs in, puts in his password, puts in his two factor authentication, and then it spins, spins, spins, spins, and it just doesn't go. And then you have to kill it and try it again and says, oh, do you wanna register? And you say yes. And then it comes up with no.
Mario Zake:It just came up with an answer that just said no. And I'm like, what the fuck?
Justin Shelley:Oh, god. This is, Thank you, Steve Jobs. Rest in peace. Anyways, guys, so okay. Mario, you kinda touched on one that I wanted to talk about is where where I believe that as the as the Mac neutral guy here, that where I do think that Mac is, I don't wanna say behind, but definitely where there might be a vulnerability is that there are fewer resources.
Justin Shelley:So number one, they're better because they have a smaller footprint and they aren't as big of a target for the bad guys. Right? But that comes with payload. And the problem with that is there aren't as many effective mainstream security tools for Mac. At least that's my experience.
Justin Shelley:Damian, what are your thoughts on that? Is that true or false?
Damien Schreurs:It's partly true. So I'm using Sophos and I'm installing Sophos on all the computers, and Sophos is multi platform. It's one of the less resource intensive anti malware on the Mac. The built in security of macOS is much worse than the built in than than Microsoft Defender. Right?
Damien Schreurs:Nowadays, Microsoft Defender, most people could just live with that.
Justin Shelley:It's pretty solid.
Damien Schreurs:I know it's not % perfect, but it's a very good product.
Justin Shelley:Yeah.
Damien Schreurs:Whereas the built in gatekeeper and Xprotect on the Mac is laughable. The number of it's 20 something families of malware only natively recognized. Right? So for me, Sophos immediately and that's to give you an idea, the home version of Sophos is totally free, three computers. It doesn't have advanced protection like anti ransomware, but it has the basic capabilities.
Damien Schreurs:I pay very, I don't remember how much is very like $45 per year or something. Ridiculous, the price and it covers 10 computers max or pcs by the way so it's both right I have one of my daughters has a gaming pc so it's protected I'm doing IT training on Microsoft Office. I have a PC, have a Lenovo ThinkPad.
Mario Zake:Databoy.
Justin Shelley:Good old Wow. We're all friends again.
Damien Schreurs:We're It has obviously Sophos on it as well. And with Sophos, can do webcam monitoring, microphone monitoring. What else can I do? Yeah. Anti ransomware.
Damien Schreurs:So it continuously checks on the Mac whether files are getting encrypted or not which in some cases is a problem because yeah some applications tend to encrypt data locally and so forth Sometimes there are some false negatives. But yeah, and I'm sorry, and I wanted to say so there is a guy called Patrick Wardle. I don't remember, he worked for CISA on the NSA or something like that. And he's a Mac guy. And he has a bunch of tools.
Damien Schreurs:Patrick Warder, I'm going to quickly Objective C, it's called Objective C and the tools there is toolbox for mac is incredible right so I've installed an application that checks every time that there is a new ip connection from an app and I can block the IP connection. So I monitor whenever an app does a web request. I have also an application that checks whether an application installs something as a login item or yeah and stuff like that. So yeah, for people or the listeners who are on Mac and who are a bit tech savvy, go and see objectivec.org. You will find a lot of useful security.
Justin Shelley:And you're saying c as in the letter, not the ocean, right? Objective dash?
Damien Schreurs:C s e e. Like
Justin Shelley:Oh, like to like the vision. Vision. Okay.
Damien Schreurs:Vision. Yes. Objective.
Justin Shelley:Because while you were talking, I did a quick Google search and I came up with a programming language. So there's many ways we can go wrong here. But Damien, so I wanna I wanna talk a little bit about you're you're kind of identifying another problem that the Mac world faces is because you're talking about for the tech savvy user and you just explain stuff that is gonna go over almost everybody's head Mhmm. That just the average computer user. Right?
Justin Shelley:And to one of the problems that Apple has created in my experience is they've kind of kept us from becoming or promoting ourselves as Mac experts. And I haven't done this recently, but I will tell you that years ago, I started running some Google ads that we worked on Macintosh computers. Apple shut me down. So I couldn't even advertise that I would work on their products because they wanted to push everybody to the genius bar.
Damien Schreurs:Wow.
Justin Shelley:You know, and and I'm not talking about consumers. I'm trying to help businesses. Mhmm. And I don't know if that's changed. I'm just like, fuck it guys.
Justin Shelley:Like if you don't want help then fine. You I'll you come to me and ask if I work on Mac. Yes, I do. My company does. We will help you.
Justin Shelley:I I do feel proficient in that world even though we do have all the problems that Mario is talking about. Yes, things change. But Mario, I hate to break it to you. That is the world of technology. Everything changes all the time everywhere, which is honestly something that keeps me entertained as a self diagnosed ADHD person.
Mario Zake:Well, Justin, it's they're changing stuff that's kind of annoying that they're changing. 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 get a new, like, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air or whatever the hell it's called now. And, you know, through her company, they'll get her a new laptop every two years. So she she keeps getting them and whatever even and and, you know, they'll they'll all work fine.
Mario Zake:But every time she's getting a new one, it's different chargers. You know? Like, one is magnetic, and then one is not magnetic, then one you one is USB c, and then they go back to magnetic. And it's like, what the fuck, guys? Like, and I you know, and she's and of course, my wife tells me, Mario, could you go upstairs and get my charger?
Mario Zake:I come down with like seven chargers and guess what? None of them work.
Justin Shelley:Right. Okay. But I'm I've I gotta push back because I have I threw it away finally, but I had like a great big case of Windows machine charger, laptop chargers that were all different and that by every every goddamn manufacturer has 20 different versions of their own chargers. So
Mario Zake:That is true. That is true.
Justin Shelley: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 honestly believe that this is a Ford Chevy situation. I think if you are in the Mac world, you do come with a little bit of rose colored glasses where you do believe everything Mac is great and everything Windows is shit.
Justin Shelley:And vice versa as Mario is greatly pointing out today, that goes both ways. Here is what I believe. This is the last thing I wanna talk about and then we're gonna move to wrap this up. Here's what I believe to be the number one problem with Macintosh computers where security is concerned. And I'm gonna put this in quotes because I hear it all the time.
Justin Shelley:Macs are more secure. That I believe is the problem. I believe mindset is the problem that that because because Mac users believe that true or not, it doesn't matter. What it does mean is they are less apt to have security software. And I love Damien that you're pointing out Sophos.
Justin Shelley:I'm going to look into more into that one. I'm I use other software and I guess I won't plug names, but I also see a lot of Macs that are unpatched. And when I was doing research for this episode, found, you know, patching is one of the places where Apple shines because window does it all the time. It's annoying so people don't do it. You know how many Macs I find that are fully patched?
Justin Shelley:Never. I don't see it and it's supposed to be automatic, it's supposed to be easy. I don't see that. But I do think again, coming back to this mindset problem, we're better, we don't have to worry about it. That's our last topic.
Justin Shelley:Damian first, then Mario, what are your thoughts on this one?
Damien Schreurs:Yeah, it's a complete total misconception. I see that every time I talk to other Mac users. They falsely believe that because they have a Mac it's immune to any kind of malware or stuff like that. That's bullshit. And there is another problem and something that actually I'm seeing now more and more because Apple has been quite pushing new features all the time.
Damien Schreurs:Number one, macOS is getting buggier and buggier. So they are implementing, they have the Windows It or something like that. They have I call that the windowsification of macOS unfortunately. That's the path that Apple has taken,
Justin Shelley:right? Interesting.
Damien Schreurs:Releasing more new features than fixing existing bugs.
Mario Zake:And
Damien Schreurs:as a consequence, some people now are afraid of upgrading and updating. And from my side, I know that it's important to upgrade so I would still give a gold star to Apple in the sense that Apple supports the last three version of the operating system. So they continue offering still security updates on so the latest one are at the time of recording is Sequoia, and then the one before Sonoma, and one Ventura. These three versions still are getting patched. Okay.
Damien Schreurs:Which is unheard of in the Microsoft and the Windows world. So that's where I would say Apple shines. On the flip side, they've been so aggressive with new features that myself I'm still on Ventura because I know that if I go to Sonoma I'm gonna maybe regret it a little bit and I avoid at all costs, the latest version of macOS. And in my mind, installing the latest version of macOS right when it's released, so in September, October, is a security risk. Yeah, because there are so many bugs and unpatched vulnerabilities, unknown vulnerabilities.
Damien Schreurs:And also from a user perspective, because people think security equals malware. No. If you lose data, if if preview, which is the equivalent of Adobe PDF, overwrite stuff, remove the OCR because it has happened in the past and people have lost the OCR portions of their PDFs just by opening them after the upgrade. It's like nice. Nice.
Mario Zake:Not to mention that I remember I mentioned this to my cousins, my two cousins that I'm really close with. I'm like, every time I update my phone before the new iPhone comes out, all of a sudden my phone starts getting really, really slow. And they looked at me, they're like, you're a conspiracy theorist. You're crazy. You're, you know, you're absolutely nuts.
Mario Zake:That's not true. And I said it for years.
Damien Schreurs:I'm like I confirm. I confirm. I have the same experience.
Mario Zake:Yeah. And guess what? All of a sudden Mac gets hit with this billions billion dollar lawsuit that they were doing it on purpose. Of course. They were purposely slowing down
Justin Shelley:Of everything
Mario Zake:that I know of their phones because the new they wanted to push you to the new one. And that's that kinda but, know, I am still I I I'm still an iPhone user. I like the blue bubbles. I don't like the green bubbles when I'm texting. Coming back to security, I mean, I think they're more secure because nobody knows how to freaking install anything on there without actually, you know, like we're we're you know, I can tell you this, I think half our Macs are probably like, we have half the antivirus installed because when we install it, we have to go through five more steps.
Mario Zake:And I think we my guys are probably going through three and then just say, fuck it. I don't know what else to do. You know? Like but, you know, it's you know, it it it is comes back to a lot of what I said earlier as well. Like they are just as vulnerable, but hackers and stuff like that, they're gonna go after the bigger part of the pie, the 80% of the people out there, even just through customers of mine.
Mario Zake:A lot of them, a lot of the bigger offices, 20 or more users, the majority of the computers will be Windows based computers. And then you'll have the random owners that wanna use a Mac, they're the ones that get the Mac computer. So they're going to go after the 80% because it's a numbers game. They send out spam, stuff like that, it's a numbers game.
Justin Shelley:Well, Mario, you're absolutely right. I think there's two categories that the main categories that the hackers are targeting. And one is this great big target. It's more efficient that way, but the other one I think is this mindset of I'm not vulnerable. Right?
Justin Shelley:And and and that is where like Windows is more at risk because there's more of them, it's more economical, cost effective for people to attack Windows. But it's also I believe a lot of Mac users are an easier target because of this mindset that, you know, it's not gonna happen to me. Don't have to worry about it.
Mario Zake:They think they're bulletproof.
Justin Shelley:Yeah. Damon, any final thoughts on that one?
Damien Schreurs:No. It's it's really yeah. It's and I don't have the numbers but I don't know many Mac users, so current Mac user, the user base, how many came from the iPhone and the iPad and how many are long time Mac users because I believe that when you come from the iPhone or the iPad it's easy to have this false sense of security
Justin Shelley:right
Damien Schreurs:because the iPhone and on any mobile platform it's same with Android right the security mechanisms are much tighter on those mobile platforms because they learned and they implemented that and reduced the footprint. And so maybe that's part of it. But I also I'm sure the old guard, the old Mac guard, they believe they are yeah. It's it's impossible to to break them. To break
Mario Zake:them That's a good point. Yeah. I I think you're right. I think because of the iOS, you know, iPad or the iPhone, people more people are going to like the MacBooks and, know, have that mentality like, oh, this thing's indestructible.
Justin Shelley:Right.
Mario Zake:Yeah. It's a good point.
Justin Shelley: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 and we've been a little long winded here. So let's very quickly just talk about because in in some ways security is security and it doesn't matter how you access your information. Ultimately, if your information isn't safe, you're in trouble.
Justin Shelley:If your money isn't safe, you're in trouble. So Damian, I'll I'll go
Mario Zake:to you first, Mario and and these are kind of final thoughts, then we'll we'll do
Justin Shelley:key key takeaways and and we're out. So Damian, where do you see the security or the problems being the same regardless of platform?
Damien Schreurs:So for me it's the fact that most people run as administrator and when are when you only have one user account obviously it makes sense and I don't remember the exact figure in my mind it's like 90% of most attacks could be stopped if people were running with a standard account or with less privileges. And I see that all the time on the Mac with my business clients or my solopreneur clients. That's the first thing we do, we create a standard account. Well, no, yeah, we know, I create another admin account, a second admin account. We log into that admin account, the owner knows the password of that admin account, obviously, right?
Justin Shelley:She
Damien Schreurs:needs to be in control, but then goes to the admin account and reduces the privileges of the main account. And then goes back to the main account. And yes, it's a little bit less convenient because every time they want to install an app that is outside of the App Store, or they want to make changes in the settings app, they then have to remember, okay, that's the user account, the admin user account, the admin password. But I believe it increases tremendously the security of their Mac. And I believe it is the same on Windows platform.
Justin Shelley:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely a big problem. Yeah. Big problem.
Justin Shelley:And I will just point out here that if security isn't a pain in your ass, you're not doing it right. So yes, there are inconveniences that come with security. But there's a bigger inconvenience which comes with an empty bank account because somebody got in and stole it or you're being sued because you weren't protecting your clients information. So Mario, final thoughts on Mac versus PC as far but really it's where are they the same? Where are the problems the same?
Mario Zake:Yeah, kind of agree with what Damian said, you still have to be cautious, you still have to take those same you know, security measures of creating different, you know, usernames, you know, still running an antivirus, you know, something that's gonna protect you, you know, real you know, from real attacks. You can't live feeling like, hey, I'm I'm untouchable, you know, because no matter what, they are just as vulnerable. You know, you can't think that because you're a part of the 20% that, you know, that it nothing out there is gonna hurt you, you know. Right. You're you're not running under the radar.
Mario Zake:It's just like we've said it, Justin, for years now, it's not a matter of if it's a matter of one because eventually, you know, people are gonna realize like, hey, you know, these guys aren't even protecting themselves, you know. So, you know, be smart, you know, and and take the proper steps to to stay secure.
Justin Shelley:Yeah. And, you know, while I've been picking on the the mindset of Mac users that they believe to themselves to be more secure, the same could be said of every human on the planet. And this is actually one of the the great things about our brains and also the biggest vulnerability about how we think and operate as humans. There are so many risks out there. If we worried about every single one of them, we would be frozen out of fear.
Justin Shelley:And so we have to learn to tell ourselves that we're not going to die when we get in our car, even though people do every single day. We have to be able to convince ourselves that when we turn our computer on, we're going to be safe, otherwise we wouldn't do it, we wouldn't run businesses. So it's a truth, it's a problem, it's also how we survive and we just have to learn to balance that and mitigate it. That's kind of where I believe they're the same on both guys. This is gonna be our our final thirty seconds key takeaway, Mario you're gonna go first if people listen to only this from our entire episode, what would you want them to hear from Mario Zackey?
Mario Zake:That no matter what, you have to stay safe. Don't bother creating tutorials, you know, to to help your people for, you know, get around the Mac because they're just gonna turn on and change it a couple days later.
Justin Shelley:I thought you'd say something like that. Damian, final thoughts.
Damien Schreurs:For me, it's just simply Macs are not more secure than Windows PCs. And you have any computer actually, the computer platform itself is less secure than the mobile device platform. So I would encourage people to have a kind of a different mindset when they think about their mobile phone, their smartphone versus their computer.
Justin Shelley:Right. Okay. And, again, you know, I love I love that you are serving this underserved segment of the market. The solopreneur in general Mac users, there aren't as many of them, but absolutely need the help as much as any of us do. So thank you for that, guys.
Justin Shelley:If if you would like to learn more about Damian and Damian, say your last name one more time. Sure. I'm not gonna try it.
Mario Zake:Go to Macpreneur dot com. And, guys,
Justin Shelley:this this is even a a mouthful. Macpreneur.com. And if you can't spell that or sound it out, then go to unhacked.live where we have links to Damian, all of his social media platforms, and his podcast. Damian, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it.
Justin Shelley:Love the banter. Love the insights.
Mario Zake:Again, thank you. Thank you very much for being a great support. Thank you for joining us.
Damien Schreurs:Thank you for having having me.
Justin Shelley:And Mario, as always, thank you for being here, guys. We're gonna Thank you.
Mario Zake:We're gonna wrap for this week. Everybody say goodbye.
Justin Shelley:Take care. We'll see you next time. Goodbye, guys.
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