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"Extremely Critical" OS X Keychain Vulnerability Steals Passwords Via SMS
Mark Wilson writes: Two security researchers have discovered a serious vulnerability in OS X that could allow an attacker to steal passwords and other credentials in an almost invisible way. Antoine Vincent Jebara and Raja Rahbani — two of the team behind the myki identity management security software — found that a series of terminal commands can be used to extract a range of stored credentials. What is particularly worrying about the vulnerability is that it requires virtually no interaction from the victim; simulated mouse clicks can be used to click on hidden buttons to grant permission to access the keychain. Apple has been informed of the issue, but a fix is yet to be issued. The attack, known as brokenchain, is disturbingly easy to execute. Ars reports that this weakness has been exploited for four years.
Nobody should defend Apple, because it should require the user to enter the password to open the keychain. Instead of users being trained to blindly click to allow access, Apple let's the application writer approve their own accesses.
Watch the video. The SMS is actually an MMS or instant message and he's downloaded a file called "Malicious.app" to the desktop. He then double clicks on that, the dock disappears, and very quickly the "Allow" button is clicked. By default OS X machines come set to allow only Applications from the Mac App Store to run. Most people reduce this security setting to allow applications from "Mac App Store and identified developers" to run. Either way, you'd have to 1) Not notice that this is a .App and not a picture, and 2) Have disabled the default security settings. Otherwise you'd get a big warning saying "You can't open this because of security settings", which would be pretty hard to miss and then you'd have to ignore the warning, change your security settings, re-open the file, not even worry about what the dialog saying "Allow" is and ignore the fact that your dock flashed on and off for no reason.
I agree that you should be required to enter your password to access the keychain, but this is a guy from Beirut shilling for his password management company. Not only that, he doesn't mention which OS versions are affected or anything else. This could very easily be the NULL-pointer dereference exploit posted last week repackaged in a very clumsy way. If it is, why doesn't he say so? Post the exploit code at least so legitimate researchers can pick it apart.
If you run around turning off security features and running random .apps from people willy-nilly on your computer, no matter what OS you're running.
Some of you clowns hate Apple so much, you will believe any unauthenticated negative you read.
I'm mixed on Apple and not fan, but it is always funny watching the "See! See! Apple is insecure too".
And then someone smart posts how ridiculous the claim is by explaining the several asterisks of the supposed exploit.
Note that the default is "Deny" and the only other options is "Open System Preferences" where you have to grant access to the app/script
I can totally see how this could happen without the user noticing.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Apologist? It's a bug. Real one. Even some gurus are going to get stung by this one.
And you greatly overstate the difficulty of joe dumbass user googling to find out how to allow non-apple apps.
Apologist.
Yeah, exactly the same bug as giving an idiot like you access to a computer. Your post if proof of that. And no, this has nothing to do with" allowing non-apple apps" - not even with allowing any apps to run. Which you would have a chance of knowing if TFA didn't hide it behind a lot of scaremongering. But it's actually there. But hey, you at best only read the summary anyway, right?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
The "security feature" in this case is just saying you want to run a program that Apple hasn't approved. I can already see the excuse for drive-by malware will be it is your fault for visiting a website Apple didn't approve.
Even when you reduce the GateKeeper settings to the minimum, you still have to answer a Dialog that warns that this is an Application that was downloaded from the internet, and do you want to run it? THEN you have to specifically grant Sudo Permission.
Seriously, what else would you have Apple do, that wouldn't have the Slashdot crowd whine that "You can't run non-Approved Apps"?
Seriously. Damned if they do, and Damned if they don't. Security is, and always will be, a set of tradeoffs.
That's not apologizing; that's recognizing reality, rather than holding something up to an utterly impossible, hypothetical ideal.
If this was happening in Linux, they freetards would be all over blaming the User for being stupid. But when it's Apple, it is always their fault. Again, not apologizing; just observing the typical modus operandi around here.