MWNY: Open Door offers Mac Internet security book

Open Door Networks Inc. has announced today the availability of the first book dedicated specifically to Macintosh security, they say — “Internet Security for Your Macintosh: A Guide for the Rest of Us.” The book is published by Peachpit Press and will be available beginning Wednesday at Peachpit’s booth at Macworld Conferences & Expo, number 855. The book is also available at retailers nationwide.

The new book is written by Open Door president/founder Alan Oppenheimer and lead technical writer Charles Whitaker. It’s divided into four main sections: “General Security Principles,” “Securing Internet Services,” “Enhancing Overall Security,” and “Advanced Topics.” The Advanced Topics section includes a chapter on securing Mac OS X. Other sections include information about Internet security at work and on AirPort wireless networks.

Internet Security for Your Macintosh: A Guide for the Rest of Us retails for US$19.99. You can get more information about the book from Peachpit’s Web site. The site includes the book’s table of contents, an excerpt, updates, and supplementary materials.

Open Door Networks Inc. provides Internet security solutions for the Mac, including Who’s There, a firewall advisor application, ShareWay IP, an AppleTalk to IP migration tool, and the DoorStop firewall.

Oppenheimer said that they drew on their own experience to write the book.

“We’ve learned a lot about what Mac users do and don’t need to worry about as far as security on the Net. We’ve also learned a lot about how they want that security to be as simple and easy to understand as the Macintosh itself. And we’ve learned that the increasing popularity of broadband connections, and the availability of Mac OS X are creating a whole new set of challenges. With ‘Internet Security for Your Macintosh’ we hope to make what we’ve learned available to as wide an audience as possible,” said Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer himself is a long-time veteran of Macintosh networking. An 11-year Apple veteran, Oppenheimer was co-creator of the AppleTalk networking system and created Mac OS 9’s TCP/IP File Sharing Feature.

The company also announced a Mac OS X version of their Who’s There? firewall advisor application. The software provides analysis of Macintosh firewall applications to make sure they’re doing their job.

The software supports Norton Personal Firewall for Mac OS X from Symantec, which is based on Open Door-licensed technology. Features include:

Advanced Access History window displaying all logged access attempts and including security risk level and host name of the accessor.

Windows summarizing access attempts by service type and accessor IP address.

Built-in information about the most common attacks and their applicability specifically to the Mac OS X environment.

Automated “Whois” lookup to determine details of the accessor’s network including administrator name, address, phone number and email.

Automated drafting of an email that can be used to notify the administrator of the access attempt and provide the administrator with details that may be useful in tracking the attempt.

The software is expected to be released by the end of August — current registered users of Who’s There? can request the current beta, and will be eligible for a special upgrade price.