HACKER Q&A
📣 ybgd

A software to monitor and restrict file access on macOS (or other OS)?


I’m looking for a software that would allow me to control what process can access what files. For example, it should intercept attempts of any process to open a file and give me a prompt to allow or deny that action. Like Little Snitch, but for the filesystem.

Little Flocker is the only app I found, but it was apparently discontinued in 2017. Overall, it doesn’t look like this topic is popular. However, it seems as important as a network firewall to me.

Consider the following threat scenario: Pretty much any program that runs on my computer (from my user) can read almost any file without me knowing it. For example, it can read my Firefox profile folder, and steal any web session. Note that FF cookies are not encrypted on disk, and the network firewall may not prevent the leakage in cases when the malware pretends to have legitimate reasons to talk to the internet.

If you are aware of anything similar for other operating systems, please share as well.


  👤 jmercouris Accepted Answer ✓
chmod can be used to change the permissions of a file. You can use this to limit access to a file behind a sudo prompt.