How To Setup Account Separation On Your Mac

One of the key ways to improve cyber security on your device(s) is to consider implementing “account separation”.
Account separation is where a combination of Standard and Admin user account logins are used instead of just a single administrator account. Each of these accounts have different passwords.
The Standard account is used for all, every day activity such as email, internet browsing and other software whilst the Admin account, with greater access privileges is used purely for the authentication of any changes that need to be made on the Mac device. Each time a software update or change to the computer’s configuration it is the Admin user password that is required and not the Standard user password that is required.

With account separation in place, a Mac computer is provided with an extra layer of security when changes are required to be installed.

To add account separation to your device, follow our simple step by step guide below:

• On your device, open system settings and go to ‘Users and Groups’ where you will be shown a menu with your devices current users. Click the ‘Add User’ button.

• Now that you have selected Add User, fill out the small form that asks for the accounts information. It is important that you select that the new user as an Administrator in the drop down box. Then, fill out the account details, using ‘admin’ as the account name and ensure that you use a secure passphrase when creating the password. Make a note of this admin password in a safe space – you will now need this whenever you make any changes to the device or its software.

• You will now notice that an admin account has been created. This will be shown below your current user account in the User and Groups menu.
• Once the admin account has been created, the next step is to log out of your current user account and log into the admin account. Once logged into the admin account, repeat step 1 and open system settings -> users and groups. This will now show our admin account at the top of the user list, followed by our user account – which we are now going to make Standard, so that it cannot authenticate any changes without the admin password. To do this, click the “i” icon next to the account we are going to make standard.

• This will open our account menu, where we can make changes to the user. There will be a toggle – ‘Allow this user to administer this computer’. Turn this toggle to the OFF position. To approve this change, you must enter the password for the admin account we have created.

• Once, we have approved this change, the computer must be restarted. This will enforce the change that we have authenticated, turning the user account from admin to standard and therefore creating our day to day, general use and work account that is used for all standard procedures on the computer.

• Now that you have restarted your computer, sign in to your user account. When opening Users and Groups, you will now notice that the user account is Standard, rather than admin. This now means that to make any changes to the device and its software, the admin account password will be required.

You have now implemented account separation onto your device, creating another barrier between your personal information and any harmful software or individuals.