Microsoft Finds Apple Gatekeeper's 'Achilles' Heel That Lets Threat Actors Bypass Security Checks

Microsoft Corporation MSFT shared a macOS security flaw, dubbed Achilles, with Apple Inc. AAPL. The vulnerability has been fixed now.  

What Happened: Microsoft's principal security researcher Jonathan Bar Or found and reported a vulnerability on Apple's macOS devices. 

The bug could allow threat actors to get around Apple's Gatekeeper security technology's restrictions on how applications can be executed. Only trusted apps are allowed to run on Mac devices, thanks to these safeguards.

See Also: Apple, Microsoft' Doing Very Little' To Tackle Child Sexual Abuse Content, Says Australia 

"Fixes for the vulnerability, now identified as CVE-2022-42821, were quickly released by Apple to all their OS versions," Microsoft stated in a blog post in late December.

The Cupertino-based tech giant Apple addressed the bug in macOS 13 (Ventura), macOS 12.6.2 (Monterey) and macOS 1.7.2 (Big Sur) on Dec. 13, reported Bleeping Computer. 

Why It's Important: Gatekeeper is a macOS security feature that is designed to ensure that only trusted software approved by Apple runs on users' Macs. 

However, according to Microsoft, while Gatekeeper is an effective security feature in stopping malware on macOS, it is "not bulletproof."

The tech giant said multiple Gatekeeper bypasses had been identified in the past; some were abused by malware families such as Shlayer. 

The blog post ended on the note that cross-platform collaboration between tech giants is crucial to mitigate such cybersecurity issues effectively. 

This post was originally published on Dec. 20, 2022.

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