Gatekeeper (macOS)

Not to be confused with the third-party extension Gatekeeper by Chris Johnson for "classic" Mac OS.

Gatekeeper
Developer(s)Apple Inc.
Initial releaseJuly 25, 2012 (2012-07-25)
Operating systemmacOS

Gatekeeper is a security feature of the macOS operating system by Apple.[1][2] It enforces code signing and verifies downloaded applications before allowing them to run, thereby reducing the likelihood of inadvertently executing malware. Gatekeeper builds upon File Quarantine, which was introduced in Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) and expanded in Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6).[3][4] The feature originated in version 10.7.3 of Mac OS X Lion as the command-line utility spctl.[5][6] A graphical user interface was originally added in OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) but was backported to Lion with the 10.7.5 update.[7]

  1. ^ "OS X: About Gatekeeper". Apple. February 13, 2015. Retrieved June 18, 2015.
  2. ^ Siegler, MG (February 16, 2012). "Surprise! OS X Mountain Lion Roars Into Existence (For Developers Today, Everyone This Summer)". TechCrunch. AOL Inc. Retrieved March 3, 2012.
  3. ^ Siracusa, John (July 25, 2012). "OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: the Ars Technica review". Ars Technica. pp. 14–15. Archived from the original on March 14, 2016. Retrieved June 17, 2016.
  4. ^ Reed, Thomas (April 25, 2014). "Mac Malware Guide : How does Mac OS X protect me?". The Safe Mac. Retrieved October 6, 2016.
  5. ^ Ullrich, Johannes (February 22, 2012). "How to test OS X Mountain Lion's Gatekeeper in Lion". Internet Storm Center. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
  6. ^ "spctl(8)". Mac Developer Library. Apple. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
  7. ^ "About the OS X Lion v10.7.5 Update". Apple. February 13, 2015. Archived from the original on September 22, 2012. Retrieved June 18, 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)