Why you should care about Apple's Snow Leopard

TalkBack 1 of 201:

Next »

• Thread View
• Flat View

How about security?

Update: I have answered my own questions with the precious few details found here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/

Are there any security improvements in Snow Leopard? yes, a few

Will the NX/DEP finally be switched on in Safari and all other internet facing programs?
Presumably it will be switched on for 64bit programs. All bundled apps will be 64 bit, but 3rd party apps may not be

Will ASLR be extended to more than a few system libraries and have increased entropy? no info

Will SL have any form of heap corruption protection, like e.g. heap encryption/checksum or canaries? Any safe exception handling in sight? yes, heap checksumming. No mentioning of exception handling

How about memory allocation techniques to foil attacks, such as variable reordering, string protection etc? No info

Last but certainly not least, will the "sandbox" finally be turned on to protect Safari, mail.app etc? No info. Presumably not because a real sandbox is an architectural change which involves splitting apps up in more processes

I was told a long time ago that Snow Leopard would be the release of OSX which would finally get it right. SL does feature more security for 64bit apps.

OSX is still by far the most vulnerable operating system out there. IBM researchers find that OSX is hit with 3 times the vulnerabilities compared to Vista for the past 3 years. 2009 is no different, according to Secunia. Independant security researchers are all telling it like it is: OSX is the easiest OS to exploit. Once you find a vulnerability (plenty to choose from) nothing prevents you from exploiting it. Unlike Vista and to some degree, Linux.

There are now definite signs that attackers now are beginning to turn their attention to OSX. Must OSX users wait another 2-3 years for Apple to catch up while OSX is a swiss cheese?

Posted by: honeymonster   Posted on: 08/17/09  (Edited: 08/17/2009 @ 07:11) You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• The True Costs of Virtual Server Solutions VMware In an economic environment that is repeatedly heralding the message "do ... Download Now
• Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More? A Few Small Changes May Dramatically Increase Your Efficiency VMware Companies have rapidly adopted server virtualization over the past few ... Download Now
• Email Security and Archiving - Clearer in the Cloud Google The time is NOW for businesses and organizations of all sizes to implement ... Download Now