Researchers retract claimed Apple Secure Kernel type-dispatch bug
Original title: A Second Look at Apple’s Secure Kernel
On native Duo 27.1 firmware, PAN blocks an ordinary Exclave’s fake capability read and returns error 4.
antid0te says its February finding that ordinary Exclave code could forge a capability and make Apple’s Secure Kernel branch through data was wrong. The earlier GLx Runner emulated security machinery and had PAN disabled, and SPRR handling was not faithful. A replay on iPhone Duo 27.1 firmware, build 24A94425, with native guarded execution on an M5 left PAN and SPRR unchanged. The probe load faulted, the object type table was not reached, and the call returned 4. The pointer check was also present in the original macOS 26.2 Secure Kernel image.
Unconfirmed: The authors say Apple has not commented publicly or privately on the original post.
- Fake headers for types 36, 60 and 63 all returned 4.
- The faulting load is ldr x18, [x18] with PAN set to 1.
- ESR_GL1 0x9600000f is a current-level data abort, a read, status 0x0f.
- macOS 26.2 Secure Kernel UUID is 0F7B4C4F-1289-34A1-9479-09451801E26F.
- roottask can still reach dispatch only if it already holds stronger frame rights.
- Vendors
- Apple
- Products
- Secure KerneliPhone Duo
- Organizations
- antid0te
Indicators of compromise
auto-extracted · verify before use · export allAll| Type | Indicator | Context |
|---|---|---|
| sha256 | 61d4e7345403551e09d99b66744958c2707cf16a437fe69616d40aadacfedc54 | atching the old LLDB transcript. The CL4 bundle has SHA-256 61d4e7345403551e09d99b66744958c2707cf16a437fe69616d40aadacfedc54 . The original bytes already contain the pointer probe: fff |
From the original article
11 min read at antid0te.comBack in February we published our first look at Apple's Secure Kernel . The experiment appeared to show that code in an ordinary Exclave could place a fake capability in writable memory, invoke it, and make the Secure Kernel branch through data beyond its object type table. That general conclusion was wrong.
By antid0te.com via buherator · antid0te.com
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