Book details of 'Mac OS X Security'

Title	Mac OS X Security
Author(s)	Bruce Potter, Preston Norvell, Brian Wotring
ISBN	0735713480
Language	English
Publisher	New Riders

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virtualbookcase.com score: 5.0   Vote for this book

The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Mac OS X Security':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
Part one covers the basics. Chapter one provides a very brief look at foundational security tools, and some UNIX user and group information. Installation, in chapter two, has a little information about BSD services and filesystems, but otherwise is a fairly standard run through the installation process. Part two is about system security. Chapter three looks at general security practices for the Mac OS X client, in terms of boot and screensaver passwords and user setup. There is a review and some expansion (additional commands) of the UNIX material from chapter one in chapter four. The user applications discussed in chapter five mostly have to do with the keychain, email, and Web browser. Part three deals with network security. Internet services, in chapter six, concentrates on the configuration of the Apache Web server. A variety of file sharing options are discussed in chapter seven. Chapter eight looks at network services in terms of firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), and wireless networking, and has a rather odd inclusion of antivirus tools. The concepts are good but the details are weak. Enterprise security is in part four. Chapter nine looks at the host configuration very briefly, mentioning the login banner and Kerberos. Directory services and Open Directory are reviewed in chapter ten. Part five examines auditing and forensics. (Get it? Never mind ...) Chapter eleven discusses various logs and options for auditing. The Osiris change detection program and TASK (The @stake Sleuth Toolkit) are described in chapter twelve. Chapter thirteen closes off with a generic look at incident response. Once again Mac users get a rather lackluster resource for security, which is a pity, since they now have a reasonably secure underpinning to the system. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2003
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Book description:

Mac OS X now operates on a UNIX engine. As such it is much more powerful than previous operating systems. It is now a multitasking, multithreaded, multi-user, and multiprocessor system with enhanced interoperability with other systems. Along with that increased power comes increased security vulnerability. Part I introduces readers to the basics of OS X security. Part II addresses system security beginning at the client workstation level. This section addresses UNIX-specific information such as permissions, executables, and network protocols and the related security concerns. Part III covers network security. The chapters in this section will cover security for internet services, file sharing, and network protection systems. Part IV addresses enterprise security using a variety of tools (Kerberos, NetInfo, and Rendezvous) as well as workstation configurations to illustrate how OS X Server and OS X inter-operate. The final section addresses auditing and forensics and what to do when an OS X network is compromised. This section teaches readers to audit systems painlessly and effectively and how to investigate and handle incidents.