Windows vs Mac Security

sdhorne writes "There is a good technical discussion over at InfoWorld on the merits of launchd and what is lacking in a comparable Windows secure solution. It is a throw back to the UNIX vs Windows security discussion that has been hashed out for many years." From the article: "it always traces back to Microsoft's untenable policy of maintaining gaps in Windows security to avoid competing with 3rd party vendors and certified partners. Apple's taking a different approach: What users need is in the box: Anti-virus, anti-spam, encryption, image backup and restore, offsite safe storage through .Mac, and launchd. Pretty soon any debate with Microsoft over security can be ended in one round when Apple stands up, says 'launchd', and sits back down."

Comments

Well written, but

[MECC]

Pretty soon any debate with Microsoft over security can be ended in one round when Apple stands up, says 'launchd', and sits back down."

It seemed pretty wello written. That said, I which he would have said a little more about launchd, at least enough to explain why it gives OSX an advantage. It would have also been nice to have had some kind of side-by side comparing Windows and OSX, like how the windows System pseudo-user trumps the admin user, and how there is not way to trump the OSX root user.

Why this can't happen under OS X:

I don't know if I'd go that far. OSX isn't 100% immune - it just has more common sense.

Concept Versus Implementation

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Conceptually, I agree that LaunchD is a really slick idea and I really hope Linux and the BSDs take a good hard look at this code and the possibility of adopting it. That said, it is not a security panacea by any means, just one more clean, sensible implementation that leaves less room for a vulnerability. The thing that makes me hesitate to laud this feature, however, is the implementation. Apple has a lot of smart people working for them and a lot of old school UNIX geeks to whom secure programming is as natural as breathing. They also have a lot of coders and managers who realize that OS X is not a primarily security minded OS. Sure, it is better than Windows and on par with a desktop Linux distro, but it isn't a locked down OpenBSD install or a super secure Linux distro. They don't focus their efforts on security and it shows sometimes when they introduce new code. LaunchD replaces a number of time tested bits of code and while it is (IMHO) a much cleaner, nicer design I haven't a clue about how well written and tested it is, especially from a security perspective. I'd feel a lot better about claiming it as a security feature if I knew some white hats had pounded on it for a while and exposed anything Apple did not bother to think of. I'd feel a lot better if the OSS community in general jumped on it and adopted it, thus helping with this security testing and adding more eyes.

I like LaunchD. I like OS X as a desktop. Lets just not get carried away here with random claims about security. OS X is inherently more secure than Windows, but that really isn't saying a lot. I'm not willing to just assume LaunchD is secure in and of itself, let alone that it will play a big part in securing the OS as a whole.

Re:Microsoft is just too nice?

[2nd Post!]

And Apple could never do the things Microsoft does:
1) Threaten Compaq with withholding OS licenses if Compaq installed Netscape Navigator as the default browser
2) Threaten IBM with increased OS license fees if IBM did not drop OS/2

Those were the lynchpins of the antitrust lawsuit. If Microsoft had ONLY bundled, they would not face monopoly abuse charges. Then HP could have UNBUNDLED IE and installed Firefox, or IBM could have unbundled Windows and installed OS/2.

Apple's bundles can be unbundled. That is the critical difference. Drag Safari, Mail, Virex, Appleworks, iCal, and Quicktime to the trash, and the OS still works.

Secure principles

[blakestah]

Mac is not dramatically more secure through launchd...

It is simple really. Six years into OS X, growing market share, and no viruses in the wild.

First principle. No ports open by default. Macs ship with a closed box. Plug it into the Internet, wait, and your machine will never get infected simply because it is not listening on any port, and no attacker has any foothold to get into the box. Over the years Windows has shipped with a wide variety of open ports, whether they be for netbios, smbd, messenger, IIS (on NT), or others. Many of these have been launching pads for viruses and worms.

Second principle. Design the OS from the ground up to support privilege descalation. That is, make it so that every action on the machine is executed with User privileges or less, unless you really need more privilege. Launchd is a part of this. On Windows, you still have ActiveX with escalatable privilege, and people get infected from web surfing or opening email.

That is really all it takes. Make it so a user cannot compromise the OS trivially, and there are no open ports, and you made a box as secure as a Mac. Once you start opening ports, you need to know what you are doing or you will be 0wn3d by some script kiddy. Make it secure by default, and force the user to take positive action to do anything that is a potential security problem (like installing executables from random places on the internet).