Dan at PPC Luddite is a good dude.
He posted a great resource which links to all of the latest security fixes revealed in recent weeks. It’s handy to go through and make sure your Mac is secure. Find it here.
Here’s a few thoughts from me –
I no longer do any online banking or shopping in Leopard. I have other more updated computers, including my iPhone 6 Plus that work better at that anyway. Granted, I am pretty trusting of TenFourFox, but still, it’s good to be cautious.
If your G5 isn’t on the internet, then you don’t have to be too worried. Hackers can’t get to your Mac if it isn’t plugged in (shocker, I know). At the end of the day though, the simplest security breaches happen when someone has physical access to a computer. You can be locked down behind the world’s greatest firewall, but if the thief can get to your machine by hand, you’re in trouble.
When you do get on the net, be careful and thoughtful. Most routers have a decent set of default security features that prevent an outside source from accessing your machine remotely. If you do open up your firewall for remote access to your G5, make regular password changes to be on the safe side. Consider limiting access to only a certain ip range. Turn off any extra file sharing services that you do not use regularly. Consider using one of the AppleScripts linked to in the article mentioned above to lock your Mac down even further.
A slim positive for us PPC users these days is a sense of obscurity. Hackers are not going to spend a ton of time targeting what few machines of ours exist out there. They are going for the big fish, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t get in trouble via a universal type app built in Java or a good old fashioned fishing website. Leopard’s BSD underpinnings also means there might be openings in common programs like bash, apache, etc. to be aware of. Stay connected to your broader PPC community to see what has been discovered and what workarounds exist, if any.
Be thankful you have a Mac. Everybody has upped their game in recent years, making even recent versions of Windows far less of a target. Macs still have a stellar security record. I’ve only had a single experience in over 20+ years of using Macs (starting with a Mac Classic) of dealing with a virus, and it was a Microsoft Word macro bug that got cross-pollinated to my lab machines from some Windows computers. I know others have had worse experiences – others have had even better. Your mileage may vary, but be glad you still use a damn good computer with a damn good OS.
— Happy holidays ya’all, Nathan