Thanks to AI-assisted security research, hackers with hats of various colors are finding exploits everywhere. Linux has had its worst week in years with the CopyFail and Dirty Frag root-gaining vulnerabilities, and things aren't much rosier at Microsoft, thanks to the YellowKey BitLocker bypass, as well as GreenPlasma and RedSun privilege-gaining exploits. Now, it's Apple's turn with a local privilege escalation that gets past the M5 chips' much-vaunted Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE).
There aren't many technical details, but the vulnerability is simple in practice: run a command as a standard user and gain root (administrator) access to the machine. Macs are rarely servers, so the practical impact is limited. However, the exploit remains concerning, as it's relatively easy to trick a user into running it and, with full system control, also hard to find and remove. The research team in question is named Calif, and as far as they know, the boffins there are the only ones making a public disclosure of this issue. Such assumptions are tricky in this day and age, though.
