Apple's New M1 Chips , Have an 'Unpatchable' Flaw, MIT Researchers Say.
Apple's New M1 Chips , Have an 'Unpatchable' Flaw, MIT Researchers Say.
The vulnerability was discovered by researchers with MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
They found that the issue lies with the pointer authentication codes (PAC) security mechanism of Apple's M1 chips.
The idea behind pointer authentication is that if all else has failed, you still can rely on it to prevent attackers from gaining control of your system, Joseph Ravichandran, PhD Student at MIT CSAIL, via TechCrunch.
However, the MIT researchers were able to bypass the PAC with a double pronged attack on the system.
We’ve shown that pointer authentication as a last line of defense isn’t as absolute as we once thought it was, Joseph Ravichandran, PhD Student at MIT CSAIL, via TechCrunch.
According to researchers, they were able to breach the software core, or kernel, of the operating system.
The researchers say that this has “massive implications for future security work on all ARM systems with pointer authentication enabled.”.
All of Apple's chips make use of the PAC mechanism including the M1, M1 Pro and the M1 Max.
If not mitigated, our attack will affect the majority of mobile devices, and likely even desktop devices in the coming years, MIT Paper, via TechCrunch.
An Apple spokesperson responded to the publication of the research.
We want to thank the researchers for their collaboration as this proof of concept advances
our understanding of
these techniques. , Scott Radcliffe, Apple Spokesperson,
via TechCrunch.
Based on our analysis as well as the details shared with us by
the researchers, Scott Radcliffe, Apple Spokesperson,
via TechCrunch.
... we have concluded this issue does not pose an immediate risk to our users and is insufficient to bypass operating system security protections on its own, Scott Radcliffe, Apple Spokesperson,
via TechCrunch.
Research conducted in 2021 revealed a bug in the M1 chips that turned out to be no threat.