Vulnerability Deep Dive: Exploiting the Apple Graphics Driver and Bypassing KASLR
Summary: Cisco Talos researcher Piotr Bania found a null pointer dereference vulnerability in version 10.0.0 of the Apple Intel HD 3000 Graphics driver, where a basic payload sent through IOConnectCallMethod causes a kernel panic at address 0x1aa2f. Talos showed that by mapping data at the NULL page and controlling the EAX value to skip a comparison and jump at 0x1aa54, an attacker can reach a CALL instruction at 0x1aa68, leak a kernel address, and escalate to root access on Apple units lacking SMEP.
Key Takeaway: The exploit turns a local denial-of-service into kernel-level code execution and a KASLR bypass, which Talos notes malware authors could use to bypass browser, application, or kernel sandboxes - and the affected Apple hardware predates SMEP, so the CPU-level protection that would normally stop this is absent.
Read the original at Cisco Talos ↗
- Topics
- Malware
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