Understanding the role of the security model

In many cases, malware uses design weaknesses in the system architecture in order to achieve its goals. Examples could be unauthorized access to sensitive data, tampering with security measures, or modification of system files to achieve persistence or stealth. Thus, the security model plays a vital role in reducing the attack surface, and in this way, reducing the number of techniques available to malware authors.

Now, let’s take a look at security models introduced in macOS and iOS and see why they are important when we talk about malicious code.

macOS

macOS (previously Mac OS X and OS X) has gone through multiple iterations since it was first introduced in 2001. Prior to that, a series of operating systems developed between 1984 to 2001 for the Macintosh family of PC was in use; now, they are known by the colloquial term Classic Mac OS. macOS belongs to the family of Macintosh operating systems derived from NeXTSTEP. This...