quarantine

When applications are opened in OS X, the system will check for the presence of a quarantine flag on the application file to determine whether the program has been downloaded from the Internet, so it can issue a warning and require confirmation before the program is executed.

This flag will prevent the system's launch services from opening the file until it is removed or the system is otherwise set to allow the program to execute. This is usually done by clicking Open within the warning dialog that appears when you first open the program. But in some instances the … Read more

Quarantining files has its benefits, but a current bug is causing some trouble.

When you first download a file in OS X the system considers it to be foreign and tags it with a quarantine flag. This flag prevents it from running if it contains executable code, at least until it is scanned and the user is notified that the file contains code and could potentially change files on the computer. If the file is an application, then when you open it the launch services will present a warning that the file was downloaded from the Internet. Once you confirm … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--In his keynote at the RSA security conference on Tuesday, Scott Charney, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Trustworthy Computing, suggested that the security industry should follow the health care model of quarantining infected PCs to prevent them from being used to send spam and conduct denial-of-service attacks.

In a follow-up interview afterward, Charney elaborated on his vision for reducing the damage from botnets and explains how infected computers should be kept off the Internet just like doctors quarantine sick people and smokers are restricted as to where they can light up in public.

Q: So you teased us … Read more