Researcher Reveals a Severe, Unpatched Mac Password Flaw To Protest Apple Bug Bounty

Linuz Henze, a credible researcher, has revealed an exploit that in a single button press can reveal the passwords in a Mac's keychain. From a report: Keychain is where macOS stores most of the passwords used on the machine, ranging from iMessage private encryption keys to certificates, secured notes, Wi-Fi, and other Apple hardware passwords, app passwords, and web passwords. A pre-installed app called Keychain Access enables users to view the entire list of stored items, unlocking each one individually by repeatedly entering the system password, but Henze's KeySteal exploit grabs everything with a single press of a 'Show me your secrets' button.

While the demo is run on a 2014 MacBook Pro without Apple's latest security chips, Henze says that it works 'without root or administrator privileges and without password prompts, of course.' It appears to work on the Mac's login and system keychains, but not iCloud's keychain. Generally, white hat security researchers publicly reveal flaws like this only after informing the company and giving it ample time to fix the issues. But Henze is refusing to assist Apple because it doesn't offer paid bug bounties for macOS.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.