OS X Lion Security Features

I, like many others, installed OS X Lion today. It took about half an hour to download, and another half hour to install. The only issue I noticed was a permissions problem with BOINC. A BOINC reinstall fixed that.

From a security point of view there are a number of features worth noting:

• Application sandboxing for apps purchased through the App Store. Sandboxing limits apps interaction with the system. Of course there are a lot of other places besides the App Store to get OS X apps, but it is a start.
• Lion joins Windows and Linux by completing the implementation of Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). ASLR makes it harder for exploit writers by making it difficult to predict where application components will load in memory.
• Filevault now supports full disk encryption, an instant disk wipe capability and encryption of external devices. Filevault can also be used to encrypt backups.

Those are the big ones, but there are a bunch more security and privacy features in the file sharing, screen sharing, and Safari that are also worth a look.