Security Experts:

Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Vulnerabilities

Apple Patches Meltdown Flaw in Older Versions of macOS

Apple on Tuesday released security updates for a majority of its products, and it patched the vulnerability that allows Meltdown attacks in earlier versions of its Mac operating system.

Apple on Tuesday released security updates for a majority of its products, and it patched the vulnerability that allows Meltdown attacks in earlier versions of its Mac operating system.

Apple rolled out the first mitigations for the Meltdown attack before the flaws were disclosed, in early December, with the release of iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2 and tvOS 11.2. Protections against Spectre attacks were added on January 8 with the release of iOS 11.2.2, macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 Supplemental Update, and Safari 11.0.2.

The latest security updates released by the tech giant for Mac computers patch 17 vulnerabilities, including a kernel flaw that allows Meltdown attacks (CVE-2017-5754) in macOS Sierra 10.12.6 and OS X El Capitan 10.11.6.

The update for High Sierra also addresses several other kernel vulnerabilities that can be exploited to read restricted memory and execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges, including ones found by Jann Horn, the Google researcher who independently discovered the Meltdown and Spectre weaknesses.

Other macOS vulnerabilities patched on Monday affect the audio, cURL, LinkPresentation, QuartzCore, sandbox, security, WebKit and Wi-Fi components.

The updates for macOS High Sierra 10.13.2, macOS Sierra 10.12.6, and OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 also fix the IOHIDFamily local privilege escalation vulnerability disclosed by a researcher on New Year’s Eve. The expert disclosed the flaw without giving Apple the chance to release a patch, arguing that it’s not remotely exploitable and the PoC he made public is not stealthy.

iOS 11.2.5 patches 13 security holes, including in the audio, Bluetooth, kernel, LinkPresentation, QuartzCore, security, and WebKit components. Some of these flaws are the same ones that affect macOS.

Since watchOS and tvOS are also based on iOS, a majority of the vulnerabilities have also been patched in the Apple Watch and Apple TV operating systems.

The WebKit flaws have also been resolved by Apple in iCloud for Windows, iTunes for Windows, and Safari.

Despite being among the first vendors to start releasing patches, Apple is facing class action lawsuits over the Meltdown and Spectre CPU vulnerabilities. Apple’s processors are affected due to the fact that they use ARM technology.

Related: Apple Silently Patched macOS Security Bypass Flaw

Related: Apple Patches Critical Root Access Flaw in macOS

Related: Apple Patches Dangerous KRACK Wi-Fi Vulnerabilities

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join this webinar to learn best practices that organizations can use to improve both their resilience to new threats and their response times to incidents.

Register

Join this live webinar as we explore the potential security threats that can arise when third parties are granted access to a sensitive data or systems.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Vulnerabilities

Less than a week after announcing that it would suspended service indefinitely due to a conflict with an (at the time) unnamed security researcher...

Risk Management

The supply chain threat is directly linked to attack surface management, but the supply chain must be known and understood before it can be...

Vulnerabilities

Apple has released updates for macOS, iOS and Safari and they all include a WebKit patch for a zero-day vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-23529.

Application Security

Drupal released updates that resolve four vulnerabilities in Drupal core and three plugins.

Vulnerabilities

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft warns vulnerability (CVE-2023-23397) could lead to exploitation before an email is viewed in the Preview Pane.

Cloud Security

VMware vRealize Log Insight vulnerability allows an unauthenticated attacker to take full control of a target system.

IoT Security

Lexmark warns of a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability impacting over 120 printer models, for which PoC code has been published.

Application Security

A CSRF vulnerability in the source control management (SCM) service Kudu could be exploited to achieve remote code execution in multiple Azure services.