Firefly for Macs

A special tool called Firefly4Mac has been created to help Macintosh OS X users search for SSNs on their computers. Firefly4Mac can be downloaded from http://firefly.uiuc.edu and will run on all versions of OS X that contain Apple's search function, Spotlight. Firefly4Mac utilizes Spotlight's ability to examine common file formats (such as Microsoft Office files) and scans for keywords that suggest the file may contain SSNs.

Firefly4Mac should run on OS X version 10.3 and higher. Click the Apple menu and select About this mac to find out what version of OS X you are running.

Note: Pre-OS X versions of Apple operating systems are not supported by Apple and should not be used on the campus network. Users of OS X older than version 10.3 or older Apple computers will still need to search their drives for files containing SSNs. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide a software search tool to assist users of these older machines. Please consult with your departmental IT Professionals for advice.

Installation Instructions

• Download the disk image (CITESFirefly4Mac.dmg) from http://firefly.uiuc.edu.
• When the drive image has finished downloading, open your Finder window.
• Double-click CITESFirefly4Mac.dmg to mount the installer.
• Open the CITESFirefly4Mac volume by clicking the icon on the left side of your Finder window.
• Double-click the Firefly4MacPkg icon to launch the Firefly installer.
• When the installation package launches, click Continue until you reach the Select a Destination page.
• Install Firefly4Mac on your primary drive, preferably in your Applications folder.
  • Select your primary drive as the destination volume to install CITES Firefly4Mac.
  • Click Continue.
• Click Install.
• OS X will prompt you for your administrator password.
• After the software has been installed, the installer will wait for you to click Close.

Firefly4Mac will now be available on your Desktop or wherever you chose to install it.

Scanning Your Computer

• Double-click the Firefly4Mac icon.
• Click the "Scan" button to begin the scan.

Because Firefly4Mac is built on the Spotlight application, scans are quite fast, taking as little as 30 seconds on a newer, Intel-based Mac. Scans on older Macs may take an hour or more to complete.

When the scan has finished, click Ok to open a scan report in the Safari web browser when it has finished scanning. The report will list the locations of files believed to contain sensitive information. It is now your responsibility to locate those files and determine whether to delete the file, remove the sensitive information, or archive the file securely.