Re: Penetration Testing on Mac OS X

[Carl Jongsma <info () skiifwrald com>]

Hi Michael,

OS X comes out of the box in a fairly secure state, though there are  
a small number of services that are running that could be of interest  
to the pentester.  The recent talk of a new vulnerability targeting  
mDNSResponder could provide a means to enter a default installation.

What is of interest to pentesters will depend on how the target  
system has been setup.  Apple patches for included third party  
software are a little bit delayed from when the developers release  
them, so if the target system allows Kerberos authentication for  
accessing services (for example), then there are some openings that  
can be targeted (if the system maintainer hasn't already patched them).

As with all systems, the choice and implementation of weak passwords  
is a common problem and probably the most significant over time.

An excellent resource for security related issues affecting Apple  
(besides news sources) is hackintosh.org.  There is also the Apple  
Developer Connection and online source to Darwin.  The NSA have  
released a paper detailing their recommendations on how to secure OS  
X, which may be a good read if you haven't already read it.  Other  
than that, have a bit of a look around the net, there are a number of  
resources that can easily be found via Google.


Carl

Sûnnet Beskerming Pty. Ltd.
Adelaide, Australia
http://www.beskerming.com



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