Apple nixes feature that let its apps skip VPNs and firewalls, after criticism from researchers

An Apple store in London. The company gained some criticism amongst scientists for computer software in the beta variation of its working technique that permitted its have products and solutions to circumvent socket firewalls and virtual private networks. (Jon Rawlinson/CC BY 2.)

The 2nd beta version of MacOS 11.2 will no for a longer time make it possible for Apple software to circumvent socket firewalls and digital non-public networks.

“ContentFilterExclusionList,” initial noticed by Mac security scientists in October, allowed about 50 Apple-brand systems to entry the internet without having likely by means of the network extension framework that authorized quite a few security merchandise to operate. The application effectively exempted Apple’s own courses from staying routed by its Network Extension Framework, which the business developed to make certain security merchandise (such as firewalls) could comprehensively keep an eye on and filter network website traffic in lieu of third-party kernel extensions. 

Scientists like Patrick Wardle, who spied the adjustments to MacOS 11.2 beta, pointed out that “it was (unsurprisingly) trivial” for malware to acquire edge of the exclusion list, and circumvent the security solutions as very well.

“Due to the ContentFilterExclusionList record any visitors created from these ‘excluded’ things could not be filtered or blocked by a socket filter firewall,” blogged Wardle, who made the firewall LuLu. He confirmed that the 11.2 beta release does not contain ContentFilterExclusionList, which indicates socket filter firewalls (these as LuLu) can filter/block all network targeted traffic.

Some elements of this write-up are sourced from:
www.scmagazine.com