Foundations of Mac OS X Leopard Security

Introduction

A common misconception in the Mac community is that the Mac is more secure than any other operating system on the market. Although this might be true in most side-by-side analyses of security features right out of the box, what this isn't taking into account is that security tends to get overlooked once the machine starts to be configured for its true purposes. For example, when sharing is enabled or remote control applications are installed, then a variety of security threats are often established—no matter what the platform is.

In the security sector, the principle of least privilege is a philosophy that security professionals abide by when determining security policies. This principle states that if you want to be secure, you ...