Apple Will Release OSX 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, This Friday

The release of OSX 10.6 includes various refinements and security benefits including 64-bit code for the Finder and other common applications. Sandboxing, library randomization and protection of memory are all standard under the 64-bit schema and are implemented with no effort by the average user. 64-bit applications use enhanced checksums, secure argument passing and hardware-based execute disable for heap memory making it much more difficult for attackers to use exploits which are triggered by memory corruption .  

Update on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 05:07PM by drStrangeP0rk

Intego has a posting showing 10.6 flagging a download that has the OSX.RSPlug.A Trojan allowing the user options including ejecting the image. OSX 10.6 does have some new anti-virus features, this example appears to be the result of mounting a downloaded disk image for the web. It may be the result of sandboxing, malware/virus/trojan identification and detailed reporting. OSX server does include Anti-Virus capabilities, this seems to be a expansion into the client side.

http://blog.intego.com/

Update on Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 06:10PM by drStrangeP0rk

Mac World has details of the protection provided in the above example reported. In OSX 10.5 "File Quarantine" apeared to the user as the dialog box which warned of content from the web invoking an user decision. This goes one step further in that "File Quarantine" now checks the files against malware definitions in a plist file located at System/Library/Core Services/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/XProtect.plist. Currently the definitions contain OSX.RSPlug.A Trojan Horse and OSX.iService which was part of the illegal iWork installer. I always recommend that an intergraded Virus/Firewall protected application be used on any Mac OSX system and that is still the case with Snow Leopard.

This is one of the many improvements to Mac OSX adding to the layered approach to security. All to often my first question is what kind of virus and or firewall are you using and the response is "We are Mac users, we don't have those problems." It is like many of the improvements in Snow Leopard which tighten up an already excellent OS. 

http://www.macworld.com/article/142457/2009/08/snowleopard_malware.html

Update on Friday, September 4, 2009 at 09:15PM by drStrangeP0rk

This site has the current list of incompatible software with the current release of Snow Leopard.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258