http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/03/20.8.shtml 

By John Martellaro
March 20th, 2007

The National Security Agency (NSA) has published version 2 of its 
security guidelines for Mac OS X. The security documents are available 
in PDF format on their OS Guides page [1] for Mac OS X.

These documents for Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server represent best 
practices for securing the OS and are widely used by the industry as 
internal standards for configuring Mac OS X. The document is actually 
written by experts at Apple and endorsed by the NSA which says on its 
Website," It is our belief that these guides establish the latest best 
practices for securing the products and recommend that traditional 
customers of our security recommendations use the Apple guides when 
securing Macintosh OS X 10.4.x and Macintosh OS X Server 10.4.x."

Practices such as setting up admin accounts, generating passwords, the 
proper way to remove Classic, which can be a serious security problem 
for Mac OS X, managing the root account, and the use of Access Control 
Lists (ACLs) is covered.

Out of the box, Mac OS X is fairly secure, especially with respect to 
closed ports. However, for those in the enterprise who want to take 
advantage of every feature of Mac OS X to lock down and secure the OS 
against not only network but local intrusions, this is a must read.

[1] http://www.nsa.gov/snac/downloads_macOSX10_4Server.cfm?MenuID=scg10.3.1.1 


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