Apple Offers Its Closest Look Yet at iOS and MacOS Security - WIRED

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The company is typically secretive on the technical details of how its products and security features work.

So the resource that security researchers say they have come to rely on most for bread crumbs is Apple's annual Platform Security Guide, the new edition of which launched today.

It details security features like Touch ID and Face ID, Apple's secure enclave, and secure boot, so that software developers and security researchers can understand more about how those features work and interact with each other.

“I am constantly referring to that guide, and have been for years,” says Sarah Edwards, a longtime Apple security researcher.

That "security through obscurity" helps keep attackers at bay to a degree, but by releasing the Platform Security Guide, Apple can help its customers take advantage of its defensive features while also providing guideposts for security researchers, in hopes that they can find vulnerabilities before the bad guys do.

Patrick Wardle, an independent Apple security researcher, said he was hoping to see more details on Apple's own antivirus and malware detection tools, something the company added in today's report.

For cryptographers at Johns Hopkins University who recently conducted an extensive analysis of the various encryption states in iOS and Android, the Platform Security Guide and historic iOS guides have been vital to understanding how everything fit together.