Interesting paper on Mac OS security

I read a a rather interesting paper last night: Inside Mac Security by Ben Knowles. Many people view OS X as a ‘black box’ with a shiny GUI (Which, lets be honest, is one of its key selling points), the paper gives an overview of some of the key security features Apple have bundled into their OS.

You may find interesting if you are curious about some of the internal security measures implemented by OS X. There is some stuff I wasn’t aware Apple had implemented, such as:

  • Anti-malware, via File Quarantine and XProtect
  • Address Space Layout Randomisation (ASLR)
  • Sandboxing (via Gatekeeper)

Paper is available from SANS here:

https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/sysadmin/mac-security-34525?show=mac-security-34525&cat=sysadmin

Mirror link here:

https://cloud.tribalchicken.com.au/public.php?service=files&t=6722b111486586abd56b5a5c30d003e5&download