osx-and-ios-security-awesome is a curated, actively maintained awesome-list cataloging macOS and iOS security tools for defenders, forensic analysts, and authorized penetration testers.
| Tool | ashishb/osx-and-ios-security-awesome — curated awesome-list of macOS and iOS security tools, forensic utilities, and jailbreak references |
| Category | Curated security resource list (Shell-linted Markdown, CC0-1.0 license per repo metadata) |
| Primary Use | Orientation and tool discovery for authorized macOS/iOS DFIR work — locating tools like mac_apt, osquery, Santa, and objection for assessments and defense |
| Safe Use | Reference material for authorized security assessments, incident response on owned/managed fleets, lab research, and defensive hardening of Apple endpoints |
| Telemetry Note | The list itself is inert Markdown and leaves no footprint; individual tools it references (e.g., osquery, Santa, BlockBlock) are themselves detection and telemetry generators that defenders deploy to observe persistence and process activity |
osx-and-ios-security-awesome is one of those quietly essential repositories that most Apple-platform security people have bookmarked at some point. Maintained by Ashish Bhatia under the ashishb GitHub namespace, it sits at roughly 1.7k stars, carries a CC0-1.0 license, and is flagged with the standard awesome-list badge. Unlike a single-purpose tool, it is a curated index: a continuously pruned map of macOS and iOS security tooling, organized into three broad territories — macOS Security, iOS Security, and iOS Jailbreaks — with the iOS section further split into testing apps and general-purpose security tools.
What distinguishes this list from a stale link dump is the maintenance hygiene. The README shows four GitHub Actions workflows: test.yaml, lint-markdown.yaml, lint-shell-script.yaml, and lint-yaml.yaml. That is unusual rigor for a Markdown repository, and it signals the maintainer is serious about link validity and formatting. The list also carries strikethrough entries with explicit dispositions, such as MIDAS and Mana Security marked abandoned, and Needle marked abandoned in 2025 with a pointer that its developers recommend objection as the successor. That kind of editorial judgment is exactly what makes a curated list trustworthy rather than just long.
The macOS forensic tooling cluster is the strongest section for DFIR practitioners. OSXcollector and OSXAuditor from Yelp and jipegit cover classic forensic analysis, while mac_apt — listed twice, which tells you the maintainer considers it load-bearing — parses full disk images or live machines and extracts forensic artifacts. Mac4n6 complements these as a reference collection of macOS and iOS forensic artifacts, and osquery appears as the cross-platform stalwart for collection and forensic analysis. For incident responders scoped to Apple endpoints in an authorized engagement, this cluster is effectively a starting inventory.
The defensive monitoring section leans heavily on Objective-See's suite, and the list does a good job of showing the full coverage matrix. BlockBlock watches common persistence locations and alerts on new persistent components; KnockKnock enumerates what is persistently installed; KextViewer shows kernel modules; OverSight monitors microphone and webcam access; RansomWhere? targets ransomware detection; TaskExplorer gives deep process inspection; and What's Your Sign? surfaces code-signing information from Finder. Add Santa from Google for binary allow/deny listing and you have a coherent endpoint-hardening stack assembled entirely from entries on one page.
Hardening and audit tools have clearly been a recent growth area for the list. stronghold configures macOS security settings from the terminal, Pareto Security is a menu-bar hygiene auditor, LockDown audits and remediates configuration on El Capitan-era systems, and XGuardian is a general macOS security scanner. Newer entries push toward enterprise workflows: fort offers a single-binary CLI with 15 checks, auto-remediation, and SOC 2 evidence reports; Raccoon is a zero-dependency, agentless CLI for audits, SSH-based fleet management, and baseline drift detection; and macharden maps 54 CIS/NIST/MITRE controls with SARIF v2.1.0 output and an HTML dashboard. The trend the list captures is macOS posture management maturing into compliance-grade tooling.
There are offensive-analysis entries too, and the list is honest about their dual nature. Masochist is a framework for creating XNU-based rootkits, mach_inject and task_vaccine demonstrate inter-process code injection, LinkLiar spoofs link-layer MAC addresses, and Malimite decompiles iOS and macOS binaries. REA is a particularly modern addition: a local CLI and MCP toolset for agent-assisted inspection of application bundles, Mach-O binaries, and Electron apps, with evidence provenance — reflecting how LLM-assisted reverse engineering is entering the toolkit. These belong in lab and authorized-assessment contexts, and the writeup framing here is documentary, not operational.
The iOS side is split into deliberately vulnerable training apps and assessment tooling. DVIA and DVIA-v2 (Damn Vulnerable iOS App) remain canonical learning targets, EvilCorp iOS offers 30 SwiftUI challenges mapped to OWASP MASVS, and DVMA extends the pattern to Flutter. On the tooling side, objection — the Frida-powered runtime exploration toolkit that works without a jailbreak — is the headline entry, alongside IDB, iRET, libimobiledevice for device protocol communication, imobax for backup extraction, and Google Project Zero's iMessage fuzzing tools. Themis from Cossack Labs covers the defensive developer angle with secure storage and zero-knowledge authentication primitives recommended by OWASP MASVS.
The jailbreak section is a compact historical index rather than a recommendation, cataloguing Dopamine, Taurine, Odyssey, Chimera, Electra, and older entries by iOS version range. For defenders and forensic analysts, this section has documentary value: knowing which jailbreaks apply to which iOS builds informs understanding of what an examiner might encounter on a seized device, and the CFW Guide link provides the canonical reference. None of these links are presented as instructions here; they are catalog entries, defanged by context.
Some structural observations for anyone evaluating the list's fitness. The README states a CC BY-SA 4.0 license in the body while the repo metadata records CC0-1.0 — a minor inconsistency worth noting before redistributing derived lists. The Shell language tag reflects the linted tooling rather than the content itself, and the presence of duplicate mac_apt entries suggests incremental rather than aggressive curation. These are cosmetic issues; the substance is solid.
Where this list fits in an authorized workflow is straightforward: it is a discovery layer, not a tool. When scoping a macOS IR engagement, an iOS app assessment, or a fleet-hardening project, an operator can walk the relevant section, filter by maintenance status (the strikethroughs help enormously here), and assemble a toolchain in minutes instead of dredging search results. The maintainer's willingness to mark dead projects — rather than silently keep them — is the single most valuable feature.
The main caveat is inherited from curated lists generally: inclusion is not vetting. Entries range from Google and Facebook projects to single-author utilities, and some linked descriptions come from vendor marketing copy (the Malwarebytes entry reads as such). Professionals should still evaluate each referenced tool on its own merits — maintenance, provenance, and telemetry behavior — before deployment in a production or evidentiary context. Used that way, osx-and-ios-security-awesome remains one of the better-maintained maps of the Apple security ecosystem.
ashishb/osx-and-ios-security-awesome.Educational analysis for authorized security professionals. Use only in controlled, authorized environments.
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