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Do they still make the default user an admin account? If so, this is, in my opinion, a band-aid designed to prevent users experiencing any bother. Actual securi

Do they still make the default user an admin account? If so, this is, in my opinion, a band-aid designed to prevent users experiencing any bother. Actual security measures will almost always introduce friction - I'd love to be able to leave my front door open but I have to use a key.

anyfoo 4y ago
Though "Admin" likely does not mean as much as you think on macOS, as long as you keep SIP enabled (which is the default, and disabling requires explicit rebooting into a recovery OS and opening the terminal there). https://help.apple.com/pdf/security/en_US/apple-platform-security-guide.pdf https://help.apple.com/pdf/security/en_US/apple-platform-sec...
eyelidlessness 4y ago
The default is still “admin” in the sense that it can sudo or equivalent. But quite a lot of the OS itself has been isolated from sudo/etc, and in recent versions isolated to a read-only FS. And quite a lot of the native APIs (eg file system access outside the app’s isolated storage) have been restricted to require asking for explicit permission before they can be used. Some functionality has even been restricted to require direct authentication (notably: password autofill in Safari). The FS access limitations feel most frictionful, but nowhere near so much as earlier Windows forays into this kind of UI; the downside of that is that it’s easy to forget what access you’ve granted. Most of the rest of macOS defenses depend on almost totally invisible malware mitigations. “Almost totally” as in you don’t even know it’s running unless you happen to spot it in a process monitor. Apple mostly strikes a good balance in macOS (IMO) between locking as many doors as it can without getting in your way, good default UI tradeoffs, mostly reasonable escape hatches if you really do know what you’re doing, and very inconvenient escape hatches for actions which truly leave your proverbial front door unlocked. (The latter involve rebooting into the recovery volume and entering explicit commands into a CLI.) If you’re a high value target, obviously none of this is sufficient. If you’re a rando user with relatively not-reckless habits, at this point it’s like gambling with odds so close to break-even most users have good reason to think it’s a solved problem.
- cma 4y ago
  Do they still revert ssh configuration every update? That wasn't very secure.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    I don’t know what you’re referring to. In my experience, the only SSH-related thing I’ve had reverted is needing to reauthorize Keychain-based access after login if I don’t automate it. Never had my SSH config become less restricted after an update of any kind.
    - cma 4y ago
      Looks like it was this and there is some way around it: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/331876/persistently-disable-password-authentication-in-sshd-on-macos https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/331876/persistentl...
      - eyelidlessness 4y ago
        Thank you for clarifying and glad there’s a workaround. I mistakenly thought you meant ssh out. Haven’t had a need to ssh into any Mac for close to 20 years.
        cma 4y ago
        If I remember right it happened without warning and reverted my key-only config when they added SIP in an update. I believe earlier updates never wiped out my change. It left me with an insecure setup that thankfully wasn't port-forwarded publicly.

anyfoo 4y ago

Though "Admin" likely does not mean as much as you think on macOS, as long as you keep SIP enabled (which is the default, and disabling requires explicit rebooting into a recovery OS and opening the terminal there). https://help.apple.com/pdf/security/en_US/apple-platform-security-guide.pdf https://help.apple.com/pdf/security/en_US/apple-platform-sec...

eyelidlessness 4y ago

The default is still “admin” in the sense that it can sudo or equivalent. But quite a lot of the OS itself has been isolated from sudo/etc, and in recent versions isolated to a read-only FS. And quite a lot of the native APIs (eg file system access outside the app’s isolated storage) have been restricted to require asking for explicit permission before they can be used. Some functionality has even been restricted to require direct authentication (notably: password autofill in Safari). The FS access limitations feel most frictionful, but nowhere near so much as earlier Windows forays into this kind of UI; the downside of that is that it’s easy to forget what access you’ve granted. Most of the rest of macOS defenses depend on almost totally invisible malware mitigations. “Almost totally” as in you don’t even know it’s running unless you happen to spot it in a process monitor. Apple mostly strikes a good balance in macOS (IMO) between locking as many doors as it can without getting in your way, good default UI tradeoffs, mostly reasonable escape hatches if you really do know what you’re doing, and very inconvenient escape hatches for actions which truly leave your proverbial front door unlocked. (The latter involve rebooting into the recovery volume and entering explicit commands into a CLI.) If you’re a high value target, obviously none of this is sufficient. If you’re a rando user with relatively not-reckless habits, at this point it’s like gambling with odds so close to break-even most users have good reason to think it’s a solved problem.

cma 4y ago
Do they still revert ssh configuration every update? That wasn't very secure.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  I don’t know what you’re referring to. In my experience, the only SSH-related thing I’ve had reverted is needing to reauthorize Keychain-based access after login if I don’t automate it. Never had my SSH config become less restricted after an update of any kind.
  - cma 4y ago
    Looks like it was this and there is some way around it: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/331876/persistently-disable-password-authentication-in-sshd-on-macos https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/331876/persistentl...
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      Thank you for clarifying and glad there’s a workaround. I mistakenly thought you meant ssh out. Haven’t had a need to ssh into any Mac for close to 20 years.
      - cma 4y ago
        If I remember right it happened without warning and reverted my key-only config when they added SIP in an update. I believe earlier updates never wiped out my change. It left me with an insecure setup that thankfully wasn't port-forwarded publicly.