While Mac OS X is becoming more and more stable with each release, its UNIX/BSD underpinnings have security implications that ordinary Mac users have never before been faced with. Mac OS X can be used as both a powerful Internet server, or, in the wrong hands, a very powerful attack launch point.
Yet most Mac OS X books are generally quite simplistic -- with the exception of the author's Mac OS X Unleashed, the first book to address OS X's underlying BSD subsystem.
Maximum Mac OS X Security takes a similar UNIX-oriented approach, going into significantly greater depth on OS X security topics:
- Setup basics, including Airport and network topology security.
- User administration and resource management with NetInfo.
- Types of attacks, how attacks work, and how to stop them.
- Network service security, such as e-mail, Web, and file sharing.
- Intrusion prevention and detection, and hands-on detection tools.
John Ray is an award-winning developer and technology consultant with more than 17 years of programming and network administration experience. He has worked on projects for the FCC, The Ohio State University, Xerox, and the State of Florida, as well as serving as IT Director for a Columbus, Ohiobased design and application development company. John currently serves as Senior System Developer/Engineer for The Ohio State University Extension and provides network security and intrusion detection services for clients across the state and country. His first experience in security was an experimental attempt to crack a major telecom company. Although he was successful, the resulting attention from individuals in trench coats made him swear off working on the "wrong side" of the keyboard forever.
John has written or contributed to more than 12 titles currently in print, including Mac OS X Unleashed and Maximum Linux Security.
Dr. William Ray is a mathematician turned computer scientist turned biophysicist who has gravitated to the field of bioinformatics for its interesting synergy of logic, hard science, and human-computer-interface issues. A longtime Macintosh and Unix enthusiast, Will has owned Macs since 1985, and has worked with Unix since 1987. Prior to switching his professional focus to the biological sciences, Will spent five years as a Unix programmer developing experimental interfaces to online database systems. He left this position when his desktop workstation was cracked, then used to attack other businesses' computers. The incompetence of his employer's system administrators resulted in his being accused of perpetrating the attacks, and a series of visits from the men in trenchcoats, nice suits, and dark glasses for him as well. As a result, Will has developed an enduring disgust for employers, system administrators, and users who don't take system security, and their responsibilities with respect to it, seriously.
Shortly after migrating to biophysics, Will developed a Macintosh and Unix-based computational biology/graphics laboratory and training center for The Ohio State University's College of Biological Sciences. At the facility, which he managed for five years, Will introduced hundreds of students and faculty to Unix, and provided training and assistance in the development of productive computing skills on the paired Macintosh and Unix platforms.
Will is currently an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Columbus Children's Research Institute, Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and the Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University, where he is studying tools that work at the interface between humans, computers, and information, and working to build a core computational research and training facility for his institute.
