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Mac OS Security: The Complete Documentation

• This category contains 2 Papers
• The last paper was added on 2007-03-26 (YYYY-MM-DD)

Abusing Mach on Mac OS X

Published on 2006, by nemo, ©Uninformed.

This paper discusses the security implications of Mach being integrated with the Mac OS X kernel. A few examples are used to illustrate how Mach support can be used to bypass some of the BSD security features, such as securelevel. Furthermore, examples are given that show how Mach functions can be used to supplement the limited ptrace functionality included in Mac OS X.

Practical Mac OS X Insecurity

Published on 2004-12-11, by Angelo Laub, ©Angelo Laub.

While rumors have it that Mac OS X is extremely secure due to its open-source Darwin core and the elaborate Unix security model, little is known about practical problems that hide under its hood. The fact that so far no serious worms or viruses exist for the Mac might give users a false sense of security. The system has its vulnerabilities and it is only a matter of time until they will be exploited. The openness of the Objective-C language and the Mach kernel allows the user to perform modifications deep in the system even at runtime. This paper intends to give an overview of the worst current security holes and possible fixes.