Leopard's firewall a "mess"...

**Glaswegian** · 11-02-2007, 02:53 PM

Leopard's firewall is confusing, inconsistent, switched off by default and incompatible with some applications, a security researcher said Friday after analyzing the new security tool.

"This firewall is a mess," Rich Mogull, a security consultant and former Gartner Inc. analyst, said after spending two days digging into the new firewall's capabilities. "It's a step back from Tiger's firewall. I was originally pretty bullish on Leopard's security, and I still am on the concepts, but the implementation makes most of its advances ineffective or unusable."

The firewall in Mac OS X 10.5, a.k.a Leopard uses a bare-bones interface -- earlier this week, Mogull called it "so simple as to be nearly useless" -- that offers users three options:

* Allow all incoming connections
* Block all incoming connections
* Set access for specific services and applications

http://www.computerworld.com/action/...ce=rss_topic17

11-02-2007, 02:53 PM	#1 (permalink)
Glaswegian Moderator/ Rangemaster TSF Academy; Analyst, Security Team; Oor Wullie; TSF Surgeon and Resident Comic Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Glasgow Posts: 25,533 OS: Win XP Pro SP3 / Win 7 Pro My System Blog Entries: 10	Leopard's firewall a "mess"... Leopard's firewall is confusing, inconsistent, switched off by default and incompatible with some applications, a security researcher said Friday after analyzing the new security tool. "This firewall is a mess," Rich Mogull, a security consultant and former Gartner Inc. analyst, said after spending two days digging into the new firewall's capabilities. "It's a step back from Tiger's firewall. I was originally pretty bullish on Leopard's security, and I still am on the concepts, but the implementation makes most of its advances ineffective or unusable." The firewall in Mac OS X 10.5, a.k.a Leopard uses a bare-bones interface -- earlier this week, Mogull called it "so simple as to be nearly useless" -- that offers users three options: * Allow all incoming connections * Block all incoming connections * Set access for specific services and applications http://www.computerworld.com/action/...ce=rss_topic17 __________________ Iain - Defender of the Haggis and all things Scottish. I don't help by PM - post in the Forums. PC Safety & Security::PC running a bit slow?::Donate::Photographers Corner