Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
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Re: Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
#2Since the whole point of notarization is to give Apple the power to revoke malicious binaries on its system after-the-fact, this seems like it works by design, no? Apple quickly revoked the notarization once they were alerted of the malware.
Otherwise Apple would have to scan every single binary submitted for notarization, which then puts a pretty large onus on them should anything slip through.
Re: Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
#3I'm confused, when did Apple "approve" anything? The notarisation software isn't a review process.
Re: Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
#4Since the whole point of notarization is to give Apple the power to revoke malicious binaries on its system after-the-fact, this seems like it works by design, no? Apple quickly revoked the notarization once they were alerted of the malware. Otherwise Apple would have to scan every single binary submitted for notarization, which then puts a pretty large onus on them should anything slip through.
If Apple didn't want scan every binary submitted for notarization then they didn't need to introduce the notarization. They already had the means to revoke malicious binaries after-the-fact by revoking the corresponding developer certificate. The main difference with notarization is that it forces binaries to be submitted to Apple early for inspection in comparison with signing using developer certificate which happens locally.
Re: Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
#5Those news about Apple approving malware are so wrong: the notarization is not an approval, it's more like a registration.
It would be news if it was on the App Store, which has a review.
Re: Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
#6It's astonishing that the developer community is fine with requiring open source projects to pay $99/yr for notarization to run on macOS. Malware authors will happily pay the developer account fees, as seen here, while open source projects are seriously hindered.
It should be possible to verify developers and distribute open source apps without a cost on macOS.
Re: Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
#7Since the whole point of notarization is to give Apple the power to revoke malicious binaries on its system after-the-fact, this seems like it works by design, no? Apple quickly revoked the notarization once they were alerted of the malware. Otherwise Apple would have to scan every single binary submitted for notarization, which then puts a pretty large onus on them should anything slip through.
Apple actually does claim to scan every submitted binary for "malicious content", among other things.[1]
1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_m...
Re: Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
#8Since the whole point of notarization is to give Apple the power to revoke malicious binaries on its system after-the-fact, this seems like it works by design, no? Apple quickly revoked the notarization once they were alerted of the malware. Otherwise Apple would have to scan every single binary submitted for notarization, which then puts a pretty large onus on them should anything slip through.
If Apple didn't want scan every binary submitted for notarization then they didn't need to introduce the notarization. They already had the means to revoke malicious binaries after-the-fact by revoking the corresponding developer certificate. The main difference with notarization is that it forces binaries to be submitted to Apple early for inspection in comparison with signing using developer certificate which happe…
Wouldn’t you also want the ability to revoke just certain binaries? Let’s say a large company like Microsoft accidentally somehow got malware on their Excel app, you wouldn’t want to terminate the dev cert because that would also cancel Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, etc
Re: Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
#9I'm confused, when did Apple "approve" anything? The notarisation software isn't a review process.
What else is the scanning of an uploaded executable than an (automated) review process though? The notarization process wouldn't be needed to implement a "kill-switch" for executables by revoking the certificate (code signing with an Apple certificate was required long before notarization). If anything, the notarization creates an illusion of security for the user which might be worse than an unsigned executable (because at least an unsigned exe looks shady right from the start, but a notarized exe had been scanned by Apple so it's ok to run, right?)
Re: Apple Accidentally Approved Malware to Run on macOS
#10Those news about Apple approving malware are so wrong: the notarization is not an approval, it's more like a registration. It would be news if it was on the App Store, which has a review.
> The Apple notary service is an automated system that scans your software for malicious content, checks for code-signing issues, and returns the results to you quickly. [0]
Apple seem to be saying that it is more than a registration process. Not passing a human review would be bigger, but it is a review of a kind.
[0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_m...