Ostiarius For Mac

The Gatekeeper security feature introduced by OS X Mountain Lion helps you prevent unsigned applications from being launched, thus keeping malware at bay. It can, however, be bypassed, so a third-party tool may be required to ensure potentially harmful content is not installed.

Ostiarius provides you with an extra layer of security, as it verifies quarantine attributes and blocks any unsigned binaries or applications with the help of a kernel extension.

The downloadable installer copies and starts a signed kernel extension that is launched automatically upon reboot and monitors activity in the background.

Because Ostiarius runs at kernel level, the protection it offers affects all users, and there is no need to launch it manually every time you open your Mac.

Any unsigned application downloaded from the Internet is blocked by Ostiarius, without displaying any notifications, although these actions are logged and can be analyzed from the Console app.

The quarantine attributes Ostiarius scans for are automatically added by the application that downloads the files. If you want to launch an unsigned app obtained from a trustworthy source, you can either remove the quarantine attributes using a Terminal command or run Ostiarius again and remove the installed kernel extension.

Ostiarius is very simple to install and does not require any additional configuration once it is up and running. However, it would be nice if some type of notification were displayed when an application is blocked, as other users may not understand why their apps are not launching.

Even more helpful would be an easier way to run trustworthy apps, without having to use the command line or uninstall Ostiarius.

This app provides a reliable alternative to macOS’ Gatekeeper, as it blocks all unsigned applications from being executed, even those that may be missed by the native macOS security feature.