The Mac Hacker's Handbook

I really enjoyed this book, it teaches a number of techniques and does a great explaining the motivation behind an attack. I really enjoyed the chapters on dtrace and rootkits, as dtrace allowed me a quick way to peer inside what sys calls are made and the rootkits were discussed very well. While yes, a number of examples are out of date due to Snow Leopard, you can contact the authors, who are very friendly and happy to share some of their public slides, as well as trying to use the ideas to foster your own techniques.Overall, a great book for anyone interested in hacking, Mac OS X, or both. Of course, if you're into iPhone hacking, this is a good place to start as well, and the authors know a thing or two there as well...

The Mac Hacker's Handbook covers a lot of useful technical topics surrounding vulnerability analysis and exploit development for Mac OS X. That said, it doesn't so much teach you directly, as guide your learning. For example, it introduces the use of DTrace on OS X for dynamic analysis. It makes a very good case for DTrace's usefulness in reverse engineering, and for you to go out on your own and learn about it. Its DTrace examples aren't really freestanding, and require some background that you must get yourself. If the book were to give you the necessary background on every topic it introduces, it would be an enormous tome, and the authors probably would still be writing it.Think of the book as explaining to you what all tools you need in your Mac hacking toolbox and why you need them, and how to put them together once you have them. It's up to you do go develop those skills on your own.The biggest shortcoming of the book, however, is it is out of date. The concepts are sound and still very applicable, but the examples are written for OS X 10.5. Most do not work on Snow Leopard. Many you can get to work if you go out and beat the pavement trying to figure them out. I recommend this, but be aware, your progress through the book will be slow going as you get bogged down trying to figure out how to adapt each example so that it works.This book succeeds if taken for what it is: a guide for your learning. You'll need to invest a fair amount of sweat equity to get the most out of it, though.

This book provides insight into many applications and internals of Apple's Mac operating system from a security perspective, which was exactly what I was looking for. A great read at home or on the plane, it keeps you interested with detailed accounts of bugs found on this platform. It goes into detail on how the vulnerabilities occur and even how to exploit them. The authors are world class guys. Highly recommended.

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.

Charlie Millers view of security with Apple OS was interesting but now in 2015 outdated since many new features

book delivered on time and as described

Great!!!!As advertised...

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.

This book "The Mac Hacker's Handbook" is very good for understanding details of OS X. But it needs an update and I really hope there will be in the future a next publication.

I was very impressed with this book. I work in computer security but i have only recently begun working with OSX.This book gives a brilliant insight into how to attack and secure any operating system not just OSX. The techniques described are more of an introduction to a topic than definitive and i think this is a good thing. I compare this to the shellcoders handbook because i think the two fit together very nicely.Mac Hackers gives you the tools and the knowledge to identify the most vulnerable or vital areas of the operating system, Shellcoders then gives you more depth into actually exploiting a bug.I dont have any criticisms of this book it delivers exactly what was expected and is one of the best computer security books i have read.

Les deux auteurs de ce livres ont plusieurs fois montrer les limites de la securite sur MacOs en gagnant différent concours(CanSecWest Pwn2Own) sur l'exploitation des failles de sécurité.Ce livre, issu de leurs expériences, est vraiment une source de techniques, de références, de principes pour la compréhension des failles de sécurités et leurs usages possibles sur Mac (montrant au passage les limites de la sécurité sur MacOs)Mais c'est un livre qui se mérite, en effet il est très techniques, dense et précis (mais pas confus), il demande des compétences certaines sur le systeme/processeur (assembleur, systeme ...) ou du temps pour les acquérir (on a rien sans rien). Toutefois l'approche du livre via des exemples et des explications des principes permet d'acquérir ces connaissances. Il ouvre alors les portes sur les tréfonds du système MacOs et vous permet de comprendre la subtilité de la recherche des failles de sécurité.Donc si vous êtes intéressé par le langage machine, la maîtrise d'outils bas niveaux (Dtrace, Metasploit ...), la connaissance sur les liens entre différentes parties du système Mac (webkit, Mach ...) alors ce livre est fait pour vous.Merci aux auteurs pour ce fantastique travail.

Was a nice introduction, but some chapters are not relevant today. Nine more words required apparently one two three f