An update released this week by Apple for the music creation app GarageBand addresses a high severity vulnerability that can be exploited for arbitrary code execution.
The vulnerability, discovered by researchers at Cisco Talos and reported to Apple in mid-December, is an out-of-bounds write issue caused due to the way saved files are parsed. An attacker can exploit the flaw by getting the targeted user to open a specially crafted GarageBand project file (.band).
“The format is broken into chunks with a specific length field for each,” explained Tyler Bohan, the Cisco Talos researcher who found the bug. “This length is controlled by the user and can be leveraged to expose an exploitable condition.”
Apple first attempted to patch the vulnerability, which it describes as a memory corruption issue, on January 18 with the release of GarageBand 10.1.5 for OS X and macOS.
However, researchers determined that the fix had been incomplete so Apple released GarageBand 10.1.6 on Monday in an effort to properly address the flaw.
The vulnerability also affects Apple’s Logic Pro X audio production suite. Apple claimed to have addressed the flaw in mid-January with the release of version 10.3.
The CVE identifiers assigned to this security hole are CVE-2017-2374 and CVE-2017-2372. Technical details are available in advisories published by Cisco Talos.
This is not the first time Talos researchers have found vulnerabilities in Apple software. In July 2016, they reported discovering several remote code execution vulnerabilities in iOS and OS X that could be exploited using specially crafted image files.
UPDATE. Apple has released Logic Pro X version 10.3.1 to properly address the vulnerability.
Related: Cisco Talos Extends Vulnerability Disclosure Timeline
Related: Apple Patches Dozens of Vulnerabilities Across Product Lines