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Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

theregister.co.uk

41–50 of 144 posts

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#41

So Apple was aware of this for 6 months and are doing NOTHING, not even communicating?! How serious do they take security and fixing it (at least within 6 months) ?

According to the paper they haven't done nothing, they cranked out a half-assed fix for the keychain issue specifically for iCloud.

So as good as nothing, but not nothing.

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#42
post #16

Quick summary of the keychain "crack": Keychain items have access control lists, where they can whitelist applications, usually only themselves. If my banking app creates a keychain item, malware will not have access. But malware can delete and recreate keychain items, and add both itself and the banking app to the ACL. Next time the banking app needs credentials, it will ask me to reenter them, and then store them i…

If this is how it works, you can check it on OS X by clicking each item in Keychain Access and looking at the Access Control tab or you can run `security dump-keychain -a` in terminal - it lists all keychain items and their access control lists. It's still a big and unwieldy list but not as bad as clicking each keychain item. Someone better at this stuff could probably think of a way to make it easier.

(This would only show if you've been exploited already, not that some app is capable of doing it.)

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#43
post #24
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article, they were aware

This doesn't seem like something a quick patch can fix. The section of the paper on mitigation suggests that it is non-trivial to correct without significantly re-architecting the app-OS relationship, if the paper is accurate, Apple is in a very difficult situation.

Yap, but the OP was saying that perhaps Apple was not aeare of the vulnerability but the article stated that they the authors had communications wiht Apple about it.

It seems that stating just a fact from the article is not liked by some

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not remotely exploitable --- it requires installing a malicious app ; that makes it far less severe than something that could be done through e.g. just visiting a webpage.

Yes, but the researchers submitted an app with the exploit to the app store, and it was accepted.

Good thing there are 1,500,000 apps in the store and getting visibility is the biggest challenge for developers/publishers :-)

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#45
Once again goes to show that Apple is mostly interested in the security of its iStore, platform lock down and DRM.

I'm not exactly shocked.

Just for kicks... Does anyone remember the I'm a PC ads, where macs were magically "secure", couldn't get viruses or hacked or anything? Turns out, with marketshare they can! Just like Windows. Strange thing eh?

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#46
post #35

The fundamental design flaw of all of these compromised password managers, keychains, etc. is that they keep state in a file. That causes all sorts of problems (syncing among devices, file corruption, unauthorized access, tampering, backups, etc.). Edit - I seldom downvote others and the few times I do, I comment as to why I think the post was inappropriate. What is inappropriate about my post? Few people stop and th…

No idea. I can't even find a single obvious interpretation of what a downvote is supposed to convey. I bet it's not the same thing twice for the same person on the same day. If it were up to me, I would remove the power-to-downvote from the API. If I really do oppose a comment, I should give a reason rather than just a “bit with a negative sign”.

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#47
post #35

The fundamental design flaw of all of these compromised password managers, keychains, etc. is that they keep state in a file. That causes all sorts of problems (syncing among devices, file corruption, unauthorized access, tampering, backups, etc.). Edit - I seldom downvote others and the few times I do, I comment as to why I think the post was inappropriate. What is inappropriate about my post? Few people stop and th…

Where should the state be kept, on a server?

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#48
post #12
post #8

"Boffins"? Isn't that rather dismissive, as in "oh, look at what those crazy boffins cooked up now!"?

It's tongue-in-cheek. The Register's style is basically a joke on British tabloid styles.

That would also explain the blitzkrieg part.

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#49

Once again goes to show that Apple is mostly interested in the security of its iStore, platform lock down and DRM. I'm not exactly shocked. Just for kicks... Does anyone remember the I'm a PC ads, where macs were magically "secure", couldn't get viruses or hacked or anything? Turns out, with marketshare they can! Just like Windows. Strange thing eh?

>Just like Windows. Strange thing eh?

Not strange if you grasp the fact that malware is just a program that has elevated access.

For me it was strange how can Apple market their system as virus-free. Now that's ridiculous.

Re: Boffins reveal password-killer 0days for iOS and OS X

#50
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the researchers submitted an app with the exploit to the app store, and it was accepted.

Good thing there are 1,500,000 apps in the store and getting visibility is the biggest challenge for developers/publishers :-)

There are lots of web pages too, but an exploit that works when you visit a web page is still a pretty big deal.
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