Wake for Network Access Setting

[Bart H]

After updating from SL to ML last year I noted the absence of this setting in its usual place. It does not seem to be in Mavericks either.

I had always thought this would prevent unwanted intrusions from outside. Was I wrong and it was removed due to being ineffective, or is it now somewhere else?

Thanks,
Bart

 

[Weaselboy]

It is in the Energy Saver pane. There is no security issue with leaving it on.

 

[Bart H]

Thanks. Does that mean I was wrong to think unchecking that box would be protective in any way?

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks. Does that mean I was wrong to think unchecking that box would be protective in any way?

It would only indirectly be more secure in a very limited circumstance.

If you have WOL turned on it would allow someone inside your network (like in your house using your router) to send a WOL packet to your computer to wake it up. So let's say someone wants to try and hack into your machine over the internal network and infect it with malware or steal data etc... to do that the machine would need to be awake. If the machine is not awake, the person could send a WOL packet to your machine to wake it up so they could try their hack. If you had WOL turned off, they could not wake the machine to try and break in.

So, yes, I suppose in this very unlikely fact set, having WOL off would help a bit. But what are the odds someone on your network in your house/office would try to wake your machine to hack into it anyway.

I keep WOL on so my AppleTV can wake up my Mac to stream music. If you don't need WOL for something specific there is really no reason to turn it on.

 

[Bart H]

Thanks very much!