Chapter 5 Mac OS X
Information in this Chapter
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An Overview of XNU
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Kernel Debugging
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Kernel Extensions (Kext)
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The Execution Step
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Exploitation Notes
Introduction
Mac OS X is the latest incarnation of Apple's operating system. At Version 10.6.1 at the time of this writing, Mac OS X is a complete rewrite of the preceding version, Mac OS 9, and is designed with no backward compatibility in mind.
Lying at the heart of Mac OS X is the XNU kernel. XNU, which stands for “X is Not UNIX,” was developed by NeXT, a company created by Steve Jobs after he left Apple in 1985. When Apple purchased NeXT it acquired both the XNU kernel and Jobs. This is when development on Mac OS X began. The XNU source code is available for download from the ...
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