Presentation topic:

What happens on your Mac, stays on Apple’s iCloud?! Bypassing Mac privacy mechanisms

 Presentation description:

“$ sudo ls ~/Desktop: Operation not permitted”. To protect your privacy, Apple introduced Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) framework that restricts access to sensitive personal resources: documents, camera, microphone, emails, and more. Granting such access requires authorization, and the mechanism’s main design concern was clear user consent.

I have co-presented extensive research on abusing the TCC mechanisms at Black Hat USA 2021 but this time we won’t be exploiting the TCC directly. Why keep attacking the TCC when iCloud stores tons of macOS users’ secrets?! Default configuration makes Mac synchronize a lot of data. Don’t you have your iMessages/Photos/Calendars/Reminders/Notes accessible from iCloud? 

Good, because you’re protecting your privacy… but most users don’t. 🙂

The presentation will share brand-new research on abusing Apple’s iCloud to get access to the users’ privacy-sensitive data. All that from malicious applications’ perspective without any additional permissions.

In this talk I will:

* describe how macOS privacy mechanisms work

* analyze macOS entitlements system and share attacking methodology

* disclose macOS/iCloud vulnerabilities leading to stealing users’ privacy-sensitive data

* show live demos

* share my exploits

After the presentation, the audience should have a solid knowledge of how macOS privacy mechanisms work, how can be attacked, what is the actual risk, and how to protect yourself.