# Mac Security: Device Guardian for macOS | RankShield > RankShield Device Guardian for macOS is a signed, notarized security engine for Mac. See what it watches, the permissions it needs, and request early access. > > Source: https://rankshield.co/mac/ · RankShield (the verifiable, quantum-safe AI security platform) DEVICE GUARDIAN // MACOS # Mac security that runs *below the surface.* **RankShield Device Guardian for macOS is a signed, notarized security engine for Mac.** It watches process execution, file and credential access, persistence and outbound network behavior, blocks addresses confirmed malicious in the kernel packet filter, and records what it found as evidence you can check. This is the direct-download engine, not the App Store dashboard. Request early access → What it needs from your Mac Version 0.1.0, early access. Issued with a single-use enrollment token, one per Mac. Fleets get a seat-capped tenant token and an MDM profile. BUILD ARTIFACT RankShieldGuardian-0.1.0.pkg SIGNED BY Developer ID Installer: SEO Elite Agency LLC (4CJQB3YNAF) NOTARIZED Apple notary service, ticket stapled ✓ GATEKEEPER Accepted, source = Notarized Developer ID ✓ REQUIRES macOS 13.0 Ventura or later, Apple silicon or Intel DETECTION TIER Observe and report, plus network-layer blocking AVAILABILITY Early access, issued with a per-Mac enrollment token Gatekeeper will accept this package without a warning dialog. You do not have to take that on trust, and the next section shows you how to check it yourself. VERIFY IT YOURSELF ## Check the signature before you install it. Anyone can write "signed and notarized" on a page. macOS ships the two commands that settle it, and they work on the file in your Downloads folder before you ever double-click it. Run them, compare the team identifier, and only then install. That is the same standard we hold the rest of the platform to. verify.sh $ pkgutil --check-signature RankShieldGuardian-0.1.0.pkg Status: signed by a developer certificate issued by Apple for distribution Notarization: trusted by the Apple notary service 1. Developer ID Installer: SEO Elite Agency LLC (4CJQB3YNAF) $ spctl --assess --type install -vv RankShieldGuardian-0.1.0.pkg accepted source=Notarized Developer ID origin=Developer ID Installer: SEO Elite Agency LLC (4CJQB3YNAF) Team identifier 4CJQB3YNAF is RankShield, operated by SEO Elite Agency LLC. It is the same identifier behind the RankShield apps on the Mac App Store and Google Play. WHAT IT WATCHES ## What does the Mac guardian actually do? **It watches the six places a real Mac compromise has to touch, rather than scanning files against a list of known viruses.** Signature scanning misses the threats that matter on a Mac now, because the modern attack is not a virus in a file. It is an infostealer reading your saved passwords and live session cookies, a persistence entry planted by an installer you ran once, or a quiet channel beaconing out to an operator. Each layer below is a set of daemons that ships in the package and runs on your machine. EXECUTION ### What runs, and what it spawned Process and exec telemetry through Apple’s own entitled eslogger, so the guardian sees the launch chain behind a suspicious binary rather than the binary alone. No kernel extension is loaded. PERSISTENCE ### What tried to survive a reboot LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons, login items and configuration profiles are baselined at install, then re-swept on a schedule. Persistence is where a real intrusion has to show itself. CREDENTIALS ### What read your keychain and cookies Dedicated watchers on keychain and browser-cookie access, because the modern Mac attack steals a live session rather than a password. Stolen cookies skip the login entirely. NETWORK ### What is beaconing out Outbound connection monitoring with beacon and command-and-control heuristics, backed by kernel packet-filter blocking of addresses already confirmed malicious on the RankShield Network. INTEGRITY ### Whether the Mac itself is intact File-integrity watching on the paths that matter, plus a device identity minted on the machine itself. Every Mac generates its own Ed25519 key at install and it is never copied between machines. EVIDENCE ### A record you can check afterwards Findings are signed and reported rather than summarised as a green tick. The point of RankShield is that protection is verifiable, and that has to be true of the guardian on your own laptop. REQUIREMENTS ## What your Mac needs to run it. **macOS 13.0 Ventura or later, on Apple silicon or Intel, and about a minute of your attention once.** The version floor is not arbitrary. The engine’s execution telemetry uses eslogger, the entitled Endpoint Security tool Apple introduced in macOS 13, which is also why it needs no third-party kernel extension. ### Before you install - macOS 13.0 Ventura or later. The installer enforces it. - Apple silicon or Intel. Both are supported. - python3 from the Xcode Command Line Tools: `xcode-select --install` - An administrator password, once, during install. - Your single-use enrollment token, which we send with the download. ### What the package installs - `/Library/RankShield/engine` The engine, its installers and its uninstaller. - `/Applications/RankShield.app` The menu-bar app. Developer ID signed, hardened runtime. - `~/Library/LaunchAgents` The user-level guardian agents, generated for your machine. - `/Library/LaunchDaemons` Four root daemons: file watch, execution telemetry, credential watch, packet-filter loader. PERMISSIONS ## Why does it need Full Disk Access? **Because a guardian that cannot see file and credential access cannot tell you that something read your keychain.** Deep security software asks for real power on macOS, and the honest thing is to say exactly what each grant buys and what breaks without it. Nothing here is hidden behind an installer that shrugs and asks you to trust it. Grant What it enables If you decline Administrator password, once at install Installs the four root daemons and the packet-filter loader that the user-level agents cannot provide. The user agents still install and run. You get detection without the deeper file, execution and network layers. Full Disk Access for python3 Lets the Endpoint Security daemons read file, keychain and cookie access events across the whole disk instead of a fraction of it. Those daemons can log ES_NEW_CLIENT_RESULT_ERR_NOT_PERMITTED and go quiet. The rest of the engine is unaffected. Endpoint Security telemetry via eslogger Process execution, file opens and credential access, using the entitled tool Apple ships in macOS 13 and later. Not optional if you want execution visibility. It is the mechanism, and it is Apple’s, not a third-party kernel driver. Packet-filter control, scoped to pfctl Lets the guardian push confirmed malicious addresses into the kernel packet filter without prompting you every time. The sudoers rule is scoped to /sbin/pfctl alone, and the anchor fails open, so a bad rule set can never cut your network. A local port on 127.0.0.1:7734 Serves this Mac’s status to you and to the RankShield Security companion app on the Mac App Store. Loopback only. It is not reachable from your network or the internet. Approvals happen once, in System Settings under Privacy and Security, and the menu-bar app walks you through them after install. On a managed fleet you stage the approval profiles first and the install is silent. See the [macOS privacy policy](https://rankshield.co/privacy-macos) for what leaves the machine. THE CEILING ## What this build does not do. A company whose product is verifiability has to publish its own limits, so here are the three that matter before you install anything. - **It does not block at the syscall layer.** Detection in 0.1.0 is observation through Apple’s eslogger, and blocking happens at the network layer through the kernel packet filter. Stopping a process at the moment it acts requires a native Endpoint Security system extension. The entitlement is granted and the extension is the next phase, but it is not in this build, so this build is not sold as kernel-grade blocking. - **It will not find a nation-state implant.** Targeted spyware of that class leaves no on-device trace that software running on the same machine can reliably see. What the guardian is genuinely good at is the far more common case: infostealers, persistence, credential theft and beaconing. - **It is early access, and gated on purpose.** Version 0.1.0 is issued with a per-Mac enrollment token instead of an open download link, because an unenrolled install runs idle and reports nothing. We would rather answer your request in a day than hand you something that silently does nothing. TWO ARTIFACTS ## Where does the Mac App Store app fit? **RankShield Security on the Mac App Store is the dashboard. This page is the engine.** They are separate downloads because Apple requires them to be. The App Store sandbox forbids Endpoint Security telemetry, packet-filter control, root daemons and Full Disk Access, which is to say it forbids everything the guardian is made of, and that is why every serious endpoint vendor ships its Mac agent by direct download and MDM. The companion app reads this Mac’s status from the engine over loopback and shows a protection console when the engine is not installed, so it is useful on its own and unmistakably better with the guardian running. ENGINE ### Device Guardian for macOS The protection itself. Direct download, Developer ID signed and notarized, root daemons and packet-filter control. Requested from this page. DASHBOARD ### RankShield Security The sandboxed Mac App Store companion. Shows live module status and activity when the engine is installed on this Mac, and a protection console when it is not. FLEETS ## Deploying it across a company. **The same notarized package deploys through Jamf, Intune, Kandji or Workspace ONE, with one seat-capped token for the whole tenant.** The token arrives as a managed preference in a configuration profile, so no one handles per-machine secrets, and each Mac still mints its own identity key rather than sharing one. Stage the system-extension and Full Disk Access approval profiles before the package and the install is genuinely zero touch, because a profile that lands after an install cannot approve anything retroactively. Tell us your MDM in the form below and we will send the configuration profile with the tenant token already in place. GET THE GUARDIAN ## Request early access. Tell us about the Mac and we send back the notarized installer with a single-use enrollment token, usually within one business day. A person reads every request. If you are covering a company or a family, say how many Macs and we issue a tenant token instead. Prefer email? Write to hello@rankshield.co with your macOS version and how many Macs you need to cover, and you get the same installer and token back. REMOVAL ## How do I uninstall it? **One command, and it ships inside the package rather than being something you have to ask us for.** Security software that is hard to remove is a liability, not a feature, so the removal path is in the same artifact as the install path and it only touches RankShield guardian jobs. uninstall $ sudo /Library/RankShield/engine/uninstall.sh removes the agents, the root daemons and the menu-bar app keeps this Mac’s identity and local state $ sudo /Library/RankShield/engine/uninstall.sh --purge also wipes ~/.rankshield, including the identity key QUESTIONS ## Mac guardian questions, answered. What is RankShield Device Guardian for Mac? RankShield Device Guardian for macOS is a signed, notarized security engine that runs beneath the surface of your Mac. It watches process execution, file and credential access, persistence and outbound network behavior, blocks addresses confirmed malicious in the kernel packet filter, and records what it found as evidence you can check. It installs as a Developer ID signed and Apple-notarized installer package, lays down a set of user-level agents plus four root daemons, and adds a menu-bar app that shows this Mac’s status. It is built for the threats ordinary antivirus misses on a Mac: infostealers that read saved passwords and session cookies, persistence planted by a script you ran once, and quiet command-and-control channels. Version 0.1.0 is early access, issued with a per-Mac enrollment token rather than as an open download. How do I download the macOS guardian? Request access on this page and we issue you a single-use enrollment token together with the notarized installer. We gate it deliberately. Without a token the engine installs and then idles unenrolled, which is not the product, so an open download link would hand people a broken experience. Access requests are answered by a person, usually within one business day. Business and family fleets get a seat-capped tenant token and an MDM configuration profile instead of per-Mac tokens, so a Jamf, Intune, Kandji or Workspace ONE deployment is genuinely zero touch when the approval profiles land before the package. What are the macOS requirements? macOS 13.0 Ventura or later, on Apple silicon or Intel. The installer enforces the minimum version, because the Endpoint Security telemetry the engine depends on uses the eslogger tool that Apple introduced in macOS 13. You also need python3 from the Xcode Command Line Tools, which you can install with xcode-select --install, and the installer fetches the one Python package the device identity needs. The download is around 330 KB. You will be asked for an administrator password once during install, and for a one-time approval in System Settings under Privacy and Security. Why is the guardian not on the Mac App Store? Because the App Store sandbox forbids everything the engine is made of: Endpoint Security telemetry, packet-filter control, root daemons and Full Disk Access. This is the same reason every serious endpoint-security vendor ships its Mac agent by direct download and MDM rather than through the store. What we do publish on the Mac App Store is RankShield Security, a sandboxed companion dashboard. It reads this Mac’s status from the guardian over loopback and shows a protection console when the engine is not installed. The companion is the window, the guardian is the engine, and they are distributed the only two ways Apple allows each of them to be. Does it block threats at the kernel level? It blocks at the network layer, not at the syscall layer, and we will not blur that line. Version 0.1.0 detects and reports through Apple’s eslogger, which is observation rather than interception, and it blocks confirmed malicious addresses in the kernel packet filter through pf. Stopping a process at the moment it makes a syscall requires a native Endpoint Security system extension. That entitlement has been granted to us and the extension is the next phase, but it is not in this build, so this build is not marketed as kernel-grade blocking. When it ships, this page will say so. How do I remove it? One command, and it is shipped inside the package rather than being something you have to ask us for. Run sudo /Library/RankShield/engine/uninstall.sh to remove the agents, the root daemons and the menu-bar app while keeping this Mac’s identity and local state, or add --purge to wipe the ~/.rankshield directory as well. The uninstaller only touches RankShield guardian jobs and leaves anything else alone. Security software that is hard to remove is a liability, not a feature, so the removal path ships in the same artifact as the install path. What does it send back to RankShield? Threat findings and device health, not your files. The engine reports what it detected, this Mac’s identity and status, so a confirmed attack pattern on one machine can arm the rest of the RankShield Network. It is not a content-collection product: the value is the verifiable finding, not your documents, and quiet daemons that report nothing for days are the normal state on a clean Mac. The macOS privacy policy sets out exactly what is collected and how to request deletion. Next: the [Device Guardian across every platform](https://rankshield.co/device-guardian/), the [Android app on Google Play](https://rankshield.co/android-security-app/), or [protecting the whole home network](https://rankshield.co/wifi-and-device-security/). Questions we have not answered here go to [our contact page](https://rankshield.co/contact-us/). Explore RankShield Platform The verifiable evidence layer for AI Verifiable AI Security Provable protection, not promises Resources Research-grade guides & live tools Pricing Honest plans, free to start Contact Talk to RankShield