The Mac Hacker's Handbook

As more and more vulnerabilities are found in the Mac OS X (Leopard) operating system, security researchers are realizing the importance of developing proof-of-concept exploits for those vulnerabilities. This unique tome is the first book to uncover the flaws in the Mac OS X operating system?and how to deal with them. Written by two white hat hackers, this book is aimed at making vital information known so that you can find ways to secure your Mac OS X systems, and examines the sorts of attacks that are prevented by Leopard?s security defenses, what attacks aren?t, and how to best handle those weaknesses.

User review
Well, it at least had Mac in the title
I have to disagree with the other reviewers of this book. The book seemed to be a jumbled collection of thoughts with only a very faint sense of direction. The book consist of a large number of code samples, but the explaination of these samples lacked.

The arena for Mac hacking books is relatively small. While I appreciate the effort to put together a basic understanding of the Mac attack surface, the manner in which this book does this seems less than cohesive. Admittedly I have not finished the entire book yet and that is largely due to the fact that reading the book more than a chapter at a time is tiresome.

I will give the authors credit for venturing into a new area of security research and hope that future books on the subject are easier to read. Not easier as in smaller words, but easier as in thought flow.

User review
The best Mac security reference
The Mac Hacker's Handbook is the best reference for Mac-specific attack information that I have found. At 368 pages, it may appear small compared to the typical 750+ page security tome. That's because the authors have done a near-perfect job of sticking to the topic at hand, the Mac. The authors do not succumb to the usual temptation to try and teach assembly language or reverse engineering. Rather, they do an excellent job touching on those topics in an OS X context, and assume the reader has a little background in that area already, or can otherwise keep up. I have done some limited research into the areas of Mac malware and process injection in the past. This book has done a fantastic job of filling in many holes in my knowledge that I hadn't been able to take care of before. Plus, it introduced me to a number of Mac-specific security features I wasn't aware of before. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Mac security.

User review
Breaks new ground into the Mac
As a security professional Mac's are an interesting subject. They combine many of the best features from other operating systems into a wonderful package. I purchased a Macbook during a pen test about 8 months ago and have been in love with it since then. Before this book looking at security on Apple products was a difficult dive into the unknown. Charlie and Dino have done a lot of hard work and figured out the internals of OS X as related to security. They clearly present what's going inside the OS and how they learned the internals. This enables other security professionals to follow their method to both gain better understanding and to know what's wrong when something inevitably changes.

I'd definitely recommend this book for experienced security professionals looking to do exploit development on the Mac.

User review
Fantastic book for understanding details of Mac OSX
Well-written, readable, and fascinating, Charlie and Dino describe what goes on under the covers of Mac OS X, warts and all. They explain the obscure, badly-documented, and unsupported. Well worth reading for anyone who wants to know what's under the covers.