Keeping your Mac secure: SSH and Remote Access

Techtool Pro 18 introduces the Security Check tool, which reviews a number of potential security vulnerabilities on your Mac. This article covers how to keep your Mac secure for the SSH Status check.

In short, if the Security Check flags SSH Status as a potential issue, it means that your Mac is accessible remotely via the SSH protocol. To make your Mac more secure, consider disabling SSH.

To disable SSH, simply turn off Remote Login in the Sharing pane in System Settings/Preferences. In macOS Ventura and later, the Sharing pane is found in the General section. In previous versions of macOS, Sharing is found in one of the rows displayed when System Preferences is first opened.

Alternatively, Remote Login (SSH) can be disabled using the following command in Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist

Note that an administrator password is required to make this change.

To enable SSH again, use this command:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist

Using SSH Securely

If you need to use SSH, but want to use it securely, one option is to set up access via public/private key, and disable access via password. We will add instructions to this article in the future to make this easier.