Apple has received a lot of praise for its new OS, Leopard, since it was launched just a few days ago, I have yet to try it out, but the word on the Internet seems to be that Apple has done a lot of great improvements and taken its OS to the next level.

However, some security experts are concerned about the new firewall that’s been integrated.

The first, and perhaps biggest problem is that it turns itself off by default after installation; this might not be a problem for people who know what they’re doing, but for the man on the street, it is not a good thing. And as some of you might remember Microsoft got a lot of hassle over the same thing back when it launched Windows XP.

Another big problem is that “block all” really doesn’t block all. Security experts such as Jürgen Schmidt from Heise Security are also concerned by the fact that Apple is using older versions with known security-issues of both Samba and for ntpd.

So the question is: are these just slips from Apple, or has it not put as much thought into security as it should’ve done, and perhaps even used to? Is it walking in Microsoft’s old tracks and prioritizing usability and design over security? What do you think?

Sources: Jürgen Schmidt

[tags]Mac, Mac OS, OS X, Leopard, security, firewall[/tags]