“Many people complain about Apple controlling what apps can run on the iPhone, but with Mac OS X Mountain Lion, the company has struck the right balance between security and freedom, experts say,” Elinor Mills reports for CNET. “‘Users can opt to turn this off and allow any software to be installed with the click of a button,’ said Dino Dai Zovi, chief technology officer at security firm Trail of Bits. ‘There’ll be no need to jailbreak your Mac.'”
Mills reports, “This level of protection is unprecedented, although it sounds like Microsoft might be headed in a similar direction with Windows 8 and its Metro app store… ‘Apple is advancing the farthest in the level of control of their platform, which is a very Apple thing to do and does provide security benefits,’ Dai Zovi said.”
Mills reports, “‘Gatekeeper is a very big deal. Combined with the other recent security enhancements in OS X, it virtually eliminates the possibility that Macs will ever see the sort of malware epidemic that Windows users have dealt with,’ Rich Mogull, CEO of Securosis told CNET. ‘I’m not saying it will stop all kinds of Trojan-based attacks, but that it will prevent that from happening on a wide, long-term scale…For average consumers this could be game changing.’
Read more in the full article here.
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