Army Buys Macs to Beef Up Security

agent_blue writes "The Army is integrating Macs into their IT network to thwart hack attempts. The Mac platform, they argue, is more secure because there are fewer attacks against OS X than Windows-based systems. 'Military procurement has long been driven by cost and availability of additional software--two measures where Macintosh computers have typically come up short against Windows-based PCs. Then there have been subtle but important barriers: For instance, Macintosh computers have long been incompatible with a security keycard-reading system known as Common Access Cards system, or CAC, which is heavily used by the military. The Army's Apple program, created [in 2005], is working to change that.'"

Comments

CAC on OS X has been working for a while...

[Eagle7]

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=cac+on+mac&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Support is built into Safari, and it is possible to set it up to log into a Windows domain, I believe.

Beg to differ, OS X at install pretty secure

[SuperKendall]

1) Out of the box, you don't have services running you can exploit.

2) On install, OS X makes you chose a username so you have to log in to use the system.

3) OS X by default is suspicious of all content coming in from the web.

OS X already starts out with a high level of security, and doesn't do anything that would lead a user to weaken that without need (say opening a port for printer sharing).