Building on ForcedEntry, Trellix researchers find now-fixed bugs in iOS and macOS, which focus on NSPredicate and could let attackers bypass Apple's sandbox
Security researchers found a class of flaws that, if exploited, would allow an attacker to access people's messages, photos, and call history.
WiredMatt Burgess
Context & Ripple Effects
This finding extends a documented lineage: the 2016 NSO-linked zero-day chain against activists was followed by Citizen Lab's discovery of ForcedEntry in 2021, which hit iPhones plus iPads, Macs, and Watches before Apple patched it. Trellix is now working forward from that exploit, showing the same attack surface runs through NSPredicate — an Apple data-querying framework — rather than exotic memory corruption.
Apple has already shipped fixes for the NSPredicate-related bugs, closing a route that would have let an attacker step outside the sandbox and read messages, photos, and call history on both iOS and macOS.
Second-order effects
Spyware vendors and their broker networks lose a reusable technique: because Trellix published the class of flaw, defenders can hunt for sibling issues while buyers of exploits must fund fresh research into Apple's framework code.
Third-order effects
If exploit chains keep pivoting from memory corruption to abuse of legitimate OS frameworks, Apple's sandbox model itself becomes the recurring battleground — and security teams shift from patch-watching toward auditing how trusted system components handle untrusted input.
The trend: Mobile and desktop spyware is shifting from raw memory-corruption exploits toward weaponizing Apple's own legitimate frameworks, making the operating system's internal APIs a primary attack surface.
Amazing research done by @alkalinesec on the @TrellixARC Vuln Team. Multiple Vulns found in @Apple MacOS and IOS. We urge everyone to update their devices if you haven't done so already! https://www.wired.com/...
Today, @TrellixARC announced its discovery of a new class of bugs which cut to the core of Apple's security model. Researcher @alkalinesec explains what the new vulns are and how they could enable threat actors to access sensitive data on the blog. https://www.trellix.com/... htt…
Today, we published our discovery of a new bug class fundamentally affecting Apple's security model. Austin Emmitt (@alkalinesec) breaks down the full story on the blog. https://www.trellix.com/... Summary of our research (and a reminder to update your devices) below. 🧵 https://t…
Proud of @alkalinesec and @TrellixARC's dedication to improving the digital world. When we talk about doing #SoulfulWork, this is what we mean. https://www.trellix.com/... https://twitter.com/...
so it turns out nearly every XPC service on macOS and iOS used expressionType to check if a received NSPredicate was safe. The problem was the sender could set this value to whatever they want. This has been fixed in Foundation in iOS 16.3 and macOS 13.2 https://support.apple.com…
This bypass, in addition to bypasses for the lists of blocked functions and classes, allowed code execution within the context of many platform daemons and apps including coreduetd, contextstored, appstored, OSLogService, and SpringBoard. https://www.trellix.com/...