Serious Mac security flaw still unpatched by Apple after 6 months, researcher says
Serious Mac security flaw notwithstanding unpatched past Apple later on half dozen months, researcher says
At that place's a security flaw in the near recent versions of macOS, including the upcoming Big Sur, but Apple doesn't seem to desire to patch it, a researcher charges.
In a blog mail service yesterday (June 30), Jeff Johnson says he found a manner to evade privacy protections on macOS in September 2019, simply waited until Apple tree launched its problems-bounty programme in December to report the flaw (thereby increasing the chances Apple would pay him for finding it).
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Apple hasn't completely stonewalled Johnson, he admits, merely he says the company claims information technology'due south "yet investigating the issue" after initially planning to set up the bug by the spring of 2020.
Now that the beta version of macOS 11 Big Sur is out just still apparently contains the flaw, Johnson has gone public.
"Talking to Apple Product Security is like talking to a brick wall," Johnson told The Annals. "I suspect that Apple tree doesn't trust outsiders with whatever data, but this mental attitude is counterproductive, because information technology merely alienates the people who written report bugs, and turns them away from bug reporting."
Tom's Guide has contacted Apple tree for annotate and volition update this story when a reply is received.
Just needs a niggling TCC
The declared flaw lies in Apple tree's Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) system, which protects sensitive files from beingness accessed by any application — a grade of sandboxing. TCC was introduced with OS X ten.9 Mavericks in 2013, but got the file-protection features Johnson is concerned virtually with macOS x.14 Mojave in 2018.
As an case, Johnson said TCC is meant to cake access to Safari's Library folder, which contains browsing history, bookmarks and downloads, from all applications except Finder and Safari itself. Because of TCC, other apps, including malware, shouldn't be able to access those Safari files.
Except that Johnson says TCC doesn't work properly, and malware can indeed admission those files. That'south because you can create a copy of an existing application (such every bit Safari), place the copy anywhere else in the Mac file system and so modify the copied app to practise dastardly deeds, such as stealing information.
"Any app that you lot download from the web could attain this privacy protections bypass," Johnson wrote in his blog post.
'Security theater'
TCC fails because information technology doesn't verify that the applications immune to access certain files are where they should be in the file organization, Johnson said. TCC also doesn't properly check whether an app has been modified because it "only superficially checks the code signature of the app."
"The copy of the app with modified resources will still take the same file access as the original app, in this example, Safari," Johnson says he told Apple. He said he included a proof-of-concept exploit, which yous can download now, in his original advice with Apple.
Johnson admits that this is non the worst security flaw in the world, because Macs did fairly well without TCC for many years.
"Prior to Mojave, the privacy protections feature did not exist at all on the Mac, so you're not whatsoever worse off now than you lot were on Loftier Sierra and earlier," he wrote. "My personal stance is that macOS privacy protections are mainly security theater."
To protect yourself, Johnson recommends what we at Tom's Guide always suggest: Be very wary of what you install on your Mac (or your PC), and pay attending to those pop-up windows that inform you of what's going on with an app as you install information technology.
We feel that the biggest weakness in Mac security is its reliance on the end user to make informed decisions without the stop user being fully informed. (You could say the same about Android security.)
To remove some of the guesswork, brand certain to install and run one of the best Mac antivirus apps, which will screen out unsafe malware before it fifty-fifty comes to your attention.
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Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/mac-security-flaw-unpatched
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