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According to Wikipedia,"Officially established on November 4, 1952, it is believed to be the world's largest intelligence-gathering agency. Responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications, it coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to produce foreign signals intelligence information, which involves a significant amount of cryptanalysis. It is also responsible for protecting U.S. government communications from similar agencies elsewhere, which involves a significant amount of cryptography."
In other words, the NSA is a bleeding-edge high-tech spy outfit, so their endorsement of an operating system's security carries a lot of weight.
In the introduction to its "Mac OS X Security Configuration For Version 10.4 or Later, Second Edition," the NSA says:
"As part of a change in our development strategy for security guidance, the National Security Agency does not intend to publish separate security guides for the Macintosh OS X operating system beyond that which was produced by the vendor, beginning with Tiger, OS X version 10.4.x. The recommendations in Apple's "Mac OS X Security Configuration For Version 10.4 or Later" and "Mac OS X Server Security Configuration For Version 10.4 or Later" track closely with the security level historically represented in the NSA guidelines. 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."
Mac OS X Security Configuration For Version 10.4 or Later, Second Edition (2.98MB) and
Mac OS X Server Security Configuration For Version 10.4 or Later, Second Edition (5.98MB)
The links to the PDFs are in a panel at the bottom right corner of:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/security/
The NSA has also developed and published its own guide for Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther," which is also unclassified and a free download to be used by US government and other entities as a security baseline.
Apple Mac OS X v10.3.x "Panther" Security Configuration Guide (2533KB) and Apple Mac OS X Server v10.3.x "Panther" Security Configuration Guide (876KB), and several others are available from Apple's web site security page. The links to the PDFs are in a panel at the bottom right corner of:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/security/
Charles W. Moore
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