Apple is currently yielding the floor to various security experts for the sole purpose of looking into the company’s Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. This marks the first known occasion in which Apple has paraded its new software to anyone outside of its immediate community of developers. It has been confirmed that Apple is indeed inviting esteemed security researchers to thoroughly scrutinize strengths as well as weaknesses in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. “I wanted to let you know that I’ve requested that you be invited to the prerelease seed of Mac OS X Lion, and you should receive an invitation soon,” the letter from Apple read. As of right now, the number of how many security research firms is unknown. “As you have reported Mac OS X security issues in the past,” the letter continues, “I thought that you might be interested in taking a look at this. It contains several improvements in the area of security countermeasures.” The security guru Dino Dai Zovi tweeted the following in a response to the letter: “Will Lion be the ‘Vista’ of Mac OS X? In the sense that they start taking security seriously, not the sense that nobody wants to use it.” Security analyst Charlie Miller, who previously helped expose Apple’s security weaknesses received the letter. Miller says he anticipates employing ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization), which is a seucrity mechanism that helps thwart software modification / hacking by randomizing the location of important data. Currently, Snow Leopard uses ASLR minimally and restricts the feature to its libraries. Apple’s iOS 4.3 is widely anticipated to deploy ASLR – a development that will make jailbreaking significantly harder as well. What do you think of Apple’s move? Let us know in the comments below! As usual, stay tuned for more news and info on the topic by following us on Twitter and/or subscribing to our RSS feed. Source:  Apple Insider, CNET, Twitter Authors:

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