News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Mechanism many macOS security tools used to check signatures could be bypassed. Parent comment

Re:Mechanism many macOS security tools used to check signatu... by kerng on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @02:06PM (#17305587)
A core security principle is Secure by Default - arguable that's something Apple can improve here.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mechanism many macOS security tools used to check signatu... by jonny_eh on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @03:28PM (#17306208)
I came here to say just that. If you have to opt-in to doing the right thing, then the API is NOT secure.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mechanism many macOS security tools used to check signatu... by shawnz on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @04:11PM (#17306517)
Ultimately you have to opt-in to doing any checks in the first place, no matter the API. So does that make every API insecure, since you could always just "return true" at the bottom of your authentication function?

To put it differently: Who's to say whether they were using the checks wrong, or just doing the wrong checks?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mechanism many macOS security tools used to check signatu... by augbog on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @03:38PM (#17306273)
They might have done it because existing people weren't doing it and it would have introduced a breaking change potentially.

Not making an excuse for them though. They should have done that.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mechanism many macOS security tools used to check signatu... by saghm on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @03:50PM (#17306355)
Preventing users from doing something insecure sounds like a perfect reason to make a breaking change.
[ Parent | on HN ]