DEF CON 2018: Apple 0-Day (Re)Opens Door to ‘Synthetic’ Mouse-Click Attack

Apple 0-Day allows hackers to mimic mouse-clicks for kernel access, despite mitigations.

LAS VEGAS – By tweaking just two lines of code, a researcher stumbled on an Apple zero-day that could allow a local attacker to virtually “click” a security prompt and thus load a kernel extension on systems running Apple’s latest High Sierra operating system.

Kernel access on a Mac gives an adversary unparalleled access to a system and that can be used to fully compromise the operating system. Apple has previously blocked methods abused by hackers and malware to synthetically approve security prompts presented to the user when attempting to perform risky tasks such as loading a kernel extension. Unfortunately, Apple’s efforts, yet again, have fallen short.

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