Register Log in  Infinite Loop / The Apple Ecosystem  Keeping
your Mac locked down: a Mac OS X security primer   Mac users
need to think about security, too  Apple's approach to security
can be a little bewildering at times. It's a well-trumpeted
aspect of the OS, marketed in detail on the website. Mac OS X
has integrated smartcard support and Apple has certified the OS
under the Common Criteria guidelines; a section of Apple's
developer site is devoted to the subject of security.  At the
same time, Apple didn't offer cryptographically signed software
updates until its hand was forced in July 2002. The company is
notorious for boiling down release notes for software updates to
"provides bug fixes and security updates" (although the separate
mailings posted to the security-announce list do tend to offer a
little more detail). While other Unix distributions tend to
patch holes in open-source code relatively quickly, Apple
sometimes delays rolling out a security fix in the open-source
components of Mac OS X for