Microsoft: powerdir bug gives access to protected macOS user data

guest · Jan 10, 2022

January 10, 2022

Microsoft says threat actors could use a macOS vulnerability to bypass Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) technology to access users' protected data.

The Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team has reported the vulnerability dubbed powerdir (tracked as CVE-2021-30970) to Apple on July 15, 2021, via the Microsoft Security Vulnerability Research (MSVR).
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TCC is security tech designed to block apps from accessing sensitive user data by allowing macOS users to configure privacy settings for the apps installed on their systems and devices connected to their Macs, including cameras and microphones.

"We discovered that it is possible to programmatically change a target user’s home directory and plant a fake TCC database, which stores the consent history of app requests," said Jonathan Bar Or, a principal security researcher at Microsoft.
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"If exploited on unpatched systems, this vulnerability could allow a malicious actor to potentially orchestrate an attack based on the user’s protected personal data.

"For example, the attacker could hijack an app installed on the device—or install their own malicious app—and access the microphone to record private conversations or capture screenshots of sensitive information displayed on the user’s screen."
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Microsoft: New macOS vulnerability, “powerdir,” could lead to unauthorized user data access

In addition, there have been several previously reported vulnerabilities related to TCC bypass. These include the following:

Time Machine mounts (CVE-2020-9771): macOS offers a built-in backup and restore solution called Time Machine. [...]

Environment variable poisoning (CVE-2020-9934): It was discovered that the user’s tccd could build the path to the TCC.db file by expanding $HOME/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db. [...]

Bundle conclusion issue (CVE-2021-30713): First disclosed by Jamf in a blog post about the XCSSET malware family, this bug abused how macOS was deducing app bundle information. [...]

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Rasheed187 · Jan 19, 2022

What else is new, just like Windows, macOS is full of holes.

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Microsoft: powerdir bug gives access to protected macOS user data

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