What is AppleAVD? Audio video decode?
This is a shot in the dark, but could it be Azure Virtual Desktop for iOS?
About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
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Re: About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
#12What is AppleAVD? Audio video decode?
It's a kernel extension for audio and video decoding.
/System/Library/Extensions/AppleAVD.kext/
Re: About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
#13What is AppleAVD? Audio video decode?
It's a kext for decoding HEVC, H.264, and VP9.
Re: About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
#14This update also happens to include a bug fix for an actual instruction selection bug in the compiler that miscompiled the Swift runtime libraries for certain devices. So if the security benefits didn’t convince you, consider making some mobile release engineers happy :)
Could provide a link with some info? I tried to look around to confirm but didn’t find anything. This sounds like it could be really useful.
Re: About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
#15This update also happens to include a bug fix for an actual instruction selection bug in the compiler that miscompiled the Swift runtime libraries for certain devices. So if the security benefits didn’t convince you, consider making some mobile release engineers happy :)
Could provide a link with some info? I tried to look around to confirm but didn’t find anything. This sounds like it could be really useful.
Someone's reported this as https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-16047. The bug is that A11 and older processors don't have a CAS instruction, and LLVM's lowering accidentally added xzr to the set of "valid registers" for the replacement instruction sequence. So if you're seeing crashes in MetadataAllocator in iOS 15.4, this is probably going to fix it for you.
Re: About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
#16Also probably interesting: https://twitter.com/patch1t/status/1509767175946792966
Re: About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
#17NSO is currently crumbling due to an internal all out war between the owners (in a war between themselves) and the debt owners (who have sided with 1 of the smaller shareholders)
The majority shareholder is trying to kill off the Pegasus branch via keeping all of the leveraged debt they took on on their side, I have to wonder if this "anonymous researcher" has anything to do with that
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-squabbling-threatens-15b-...
If this was one of Pegasus' main 0days post "FORCEDENTRY" patch, this would make this fight quiet down very quickly
Re: About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
#18What is AppleAVD? Audio video decode?
It's a kext for decoding HEVC, H.264, and VP9.
Sounds to me like a terrible OS design, to have such arbitrary things as video decoding, require a kernel extension. Microsoft move drivers, such as GPU, to user space, to escape exactly issues like these. This is likely done for the sake of DRM, which is even worse.
But SiDeLoADiNg is what is threatening users’ security.
Re: About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a kext for decoding HEVC, H.264, and VP9.
Sounds to me like a terrible OS design, to have such arbitrary things as video decoding, require a kernel extension. Microsoft move drivers, such as GPU, to user space, to escape exactly issues like these. This is likely done for the sake of DRM, which is even worse. But SiDeLoADiNg is what is threatening users’ security.
> Sounds to me like a terrible OS design, to have such arbitrary things as video decoding, require a kernel extension
Why?
Re: About the security content of iOS 15.4.1 and iPadOS 15.4.1
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a kext for decoding HEVC, H.264, and VP9.
Sounds to me like a terrible OS design, to have such arbitrary things as video decoding, require a kernel extension. Microsoft move drivers, such as GPU, to user space, to escape exactly issues like these. This is likely done for the sake of DRM, which is even worse. But SiDeLoADiNg is what is threatening users’ security.
You realize it's common for PCs to have entire dedicated hardware circuitry for this, right? The HEVC support for Windows 10 depends on hardware support, for instance. And the decoding for 4K Blu-rays is actually being dropped by Intel chips, which means desktop platforms are losing the ability to decide their encryption.