Thursday, October 18, 2007

MacOS 10.5 - Leopard security features

If you're a Mac user, you've probably been looking forward to MacOS 10.5. The official release feature list has been posted, and there are a few security standouts on the list:

  • Library randomization is included to make stack attacks more difficult.
  • Firewalling is more granular at the application behavior level. This is good news, and I'll be interested in trying it out to see how much control we will get.
  • Stronger disk encryption - AES 256 is now supported for those with high encryption requirements.
There are a number of other security features included. Time Machine, Apple's automatic backup and versioning system may be the most interesting for security analysts, as it may preserve data that users or attackers believe that they have removed from the system.

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