For sometime, most people believed that owning a Mac was a safe choice, and that only Windows users could get hacked. However, researcher Patrick Wardle doesn't seem to think so. During a talk at the RSA Conference recently,
Wardle explained the security measures on OSX are actually full of holes, if a competent hacker chose to exploit them. First up, he said that GateKeeper, Apple's app verifier, doesn't check extra content in apps, but rather only the app bundle itself. Meaning that attackers could load a verified app with dangerous extra content and it could, according to Wardle, slide right through Apple's security.
The researcher went on to say that Apple's sandbox technology on OSX is quite strong in terms of security, but there were a number of bugs that can be used to bypass it. On top of what Wardle called a 'trivial to bypass' anti-malware system, he also found issues with code signing: "The code signing just checks for a signature and if it's not there, it doesn't do anything and lets the app run. I can unsign a signed app and the loader has no way to stop it from running."