Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server | Hacker News Reader

Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server

techcrunch.com

1,358 pointscoloneltcb532 comments

If you would like to force this update you can do so via the terminal:

softwareupdate -ia --include-config-data

It will show up as MRTConfigData if you look under Apple Menu->About This Mac->System Report->Software->Installations. The latest version is 1.45 and was updated today which includes the Zoom mitigations.

This also install a lot of stuff people may not want to. You can install only the designated package with :

    softwareupdate -i MRTConfigData_10_14-1.45 --include-config-data

> MRTConfigData

If I'm correct MRT stands for Malware Removal Tool.

I'd feel pretty bad if anything I worked on had to be uninstalled by that.

Well, it’s literally malware.

You are correct, the -a flag will install all updates that are available from Apple. Thanks!

What updates would people not want to install? Just curious, not arguing.

I like to precisely know what's installed and running on my devices. It does not make sense to install latest HP printer software, or new Apple Pro Codecs, to patch a particular security flaw related to Zoom.

Software Update Tool

MRTConfigData_10_14-1.45: No such update No updates are available.

I am also getting this error, and suspect it is because I’m on 10.12.6. If you do system_profiler SPInstallHistoryDataType |grep -A5 MRTConfigData you should see your latest version. For me, it’s 1.42. Not sure how to get the update yet though. Will update this comment once I figure that out.

Update: According to this macworld article, there is a Zoom patch out that fixes this. https://www.macworld.com/article/3407764/zoom-mac-app-flaw-c...

There are also commands at the bottom to manually kill the zoom localhost and disable it. I have opted to run those commands regardless:

  pkill ZoomOpener;rm -rf ~/.zoomus;touch ~/.zoomus &&chmod 000 ~/.zoomus;

  pkill "RingCentralOpener";rm -rf ~/.ringcentralopener;touch ~/.ringcentralopener &&chmod 000 ~/.ringcentralopener;#

Use

    softwareupdate -l --include-config-data

To list available updates, then adjust the command with the MRTConfigData version Apple provides for you.

Thank you for this. HN comments always make me realize I don’t know enough about MacOS command line. My primary system is Linux so I miss out in these MacOS specific commands day to day. But I would love to pick up a few, if there’s a book or document.

Is there a book you can recommend? Or did you pick these up over the years

To check it with fewer mouse clicks:

  system_profiler SPInstallHistoryDataType |grep -A5 MRTConfigData

Helpful! Thanks...

Any details about --include-config-data? Doesn't seem to be documented in the help message.

This blog post[1] has a good explanation of ConfigData updates. The flag would appear to force the install of new Gatekeeper configuration updates.

>To help distinguish Gatekeeper and XProtect updates from other updates in the software update feed, Apple marks them as being ConfigData updates.

>Marking these updates as ConfigData cues the App Store to not display these as available software updates in the App Store’s list of software updates. These updates are meant to be under Apple’s control and to be as invisible as possible.

[1] https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/managing-automa...

Thank you!

softwareupdate --history --all | grep MRT

MRTConfigData 1.45 2019-07-11, 13:10:59 softwareupdated

This means there might have been another side to this story: Zoom's change of heart might have been forced by Apple, not the public backlash.

Apple: Hey, your app poses a threat to macOS security. We're going to remove your server app with the built-in macOS anti-virus.

Zoom: Oh crap. Okay, give us 2 sprints to release a new version that removes it.

Apple: We're killing it in 48 hours.

...

Zoom, after an all-nighter: HEyyy users, we have a patch for youu

I've been on the Catalina Beta since the week of WWDC, and Zoom hasnt worked for me until the update today.

The loading modal would come up, but the app window would never open and I would have to force kill the app entirely, since I couldn't close the modal.

I suspect that Apple had already closed the possibility of the loophole on Catalina, which is why it wasn't working.

So I suspect they had probably noticed it weeks ago.

I believe the issues running Zoom were due to tightening of security in Catalina for screen capture.

I had the same experience on Catalina, couldn't launch. Explains why I couldn't reproduce the bug from the Medium article too. Uninstalled it before the update.

HN 2 hours since story broke:

  rm -rf ~/.zoomus

That doesn't solve the problem because the webserver continues to run even if you have uninstalled Zoom.

Source: https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-...

Quote: "Then you can delete the ~/.zoomus directory to remove the web server application files."

You'd still have to kill the pid

Wild speculation.

Wouldn't say so.

The who found the Vulnerability where at least talking to the people at chrome and firefox: Quote from there Blogpost (https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-...) "Apr 10, 2019 — Vulnerability disclosed to Chromium security team.

Apr 19, 2019 — Vulnerability disclosed to Mozilla FireFox security team."

So, not entirely unrealistic that the other Browser manufacturer also got a notice.

More like a good joke

But highly plausible.

That's pretty epic. Apple continues to make big, brave moral gestures (like when they yanked Facebook and Google's enterprise certs earlier this year, or killed long-term tracking cookies in Safari overnight).

Makes me happy to be a customer. Hope they keep enforcing their own rules and protecting their users' privacy and security in this fearless manner.

I don't think disabling the enterprise certs was particularly moral, Facebook and Google were flagrantly violating the terms of the enterprise program. Apple also apparently didn't even notice (or didn't care) until articles about it started getting a lot of attention.

Apple definitely does make some commendable decisions, but I think it's also important to distinguish between bravery and what Ben Thompson calls "Strategy Credits" (https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/):

> Strategy Credit: An uncomplicated decision that makes a company look good relative to other companies who face much more significant trade-offs.

> Apple also apparently didn't even notice

Do they have any information about enterprise apps? As I understand it, Apple never phones home with app info (such as the identifier, name, etc) when verifying or installing enterprise-signed apps, so the only thing they know is probably the IP address requesting to verify the enterprise-signed app and the frequency of how often Apple devices do this certificate verification.

Considering FB and Google have many employees in all different parts of the world, it wouldn't be too suspicious to see a good amount of diversity between GeoIP regions.

Correct me if i'm wrong about what info Apple collects about enterprise apps.

As far as I can see this is correct. Even if devices are enrolled In Apple's Enterprise MDM program, the administration staff are the ones who get to see which applications are installed on the iDevice, not Apple. And I really do not think they are so preoccupied with this that they want to actively scan IP addresses for suspicious behavior (of which there probably isn't any to begin with).

Anyway I wholehartedly agree with you here and I think Apple genuinely had no knowledge of this activity until news outlets reported on it. Or if they did, it did not make its way to the higher-ups that revoke developer certs.

Going forwards, Apple will require that companies provide their enterprise apps to be audited.

Indeed a company's "morals" are better exposed when it has to make inconvenient choices.

I would say true morals lead to structuring your company in such a way that you don’t have to rely on business people making ethical decisions moment to moment, because they won’t.

As nice as that sounds, I think it requires an impossibly perfect prediction of future events. You face ethical decisions whenever you have power or limited resources.

You can certainly form a company whose line of business minimizes how many ethical questions it will face; I'd consider that to be ducking out and ultimately less moral than entering a business where there are genuinely tough ethical questions that you will need to take positions on (and inevitably sometimes get wrong).

For example between easily upgradeable environment-friendly product and a box of glued components with no-user replaceable parts so that they need to buy a new item in the line sooner.

I'm not convinced that morality and self-interest are mutually exclusive. Very often the best decision for a given entity to make is a moral one.

We should still reward/praise companies who make decisions that are morally superior to their competitors, regardless of whether the morality itself was a primary motivation.

I personally believe morality and self interest strongly overlap over the long term, but short term they are largely independent conditional on the probability of getting caught...

Humans might have too short lifespans, memories and limited rationality for the long term benefit of morality to be strongly in our individual self interest though... one of the possible benefits of anti-aging and cognitive enhancement tech is it might incentivize us to be more moral all other things equal as a side effect.

Yeah, I'm not sure I attribute Apple and Tim Cook's latest stances to strong moral fortitude. I think it's more corporate 101:

1) Public sentiment is hammering companies for perceived privacy violations

2) Our business model does not rely heavily on selling user data

3) Make public statements about how much we value privacy at literally no cost to us

4) Get in a good dig at our competition at the same time

Perhaps. But I also find it easy to buy that a guy who grew up gay in Alabama could think privacy is of fundamental importance.

I would be reticent to praise them quite so effusively, though I do think they're the best of of the big tech companies currently. I'll be watching the development of this suit with great interest: https://time.com/5596033/lawsuit-apple-selling-itunes-listen...

I think that case is kind of a stretch. I read the complaint and there are two arguments:

1. Lists of people who have purchased [music genre] from iTunes & listened on Pandora is for sale by data brokers, and

2. App developers (they specifically call out Pandora) who use the MediaFramework API have access to iTunes library metadata that they can then collect.

I haven’t looked at Apple’s Developer Agreement recently but I suspect Pandora (and potentially others) hasn’t complied with the terms.

I do appreciate Apple's overall stance and actions regarding privacy, but I see this as a very practical action for their own self-interest. Apple has staked its reputation on privacy. The headline-level summary of this incident is that Mac users are exclusively affected by Zoom's bug/security hole. Among consumers, unauthorized access to the webcam is the epitome of modern invasion of privacy. All it takes is one Apple user to be victimized for Apple's reputation on privacy to be as much of an ongoing punchline as Samsung's exploding phones.

Why not both?

Glad to see that Cook hasn't altered this as Apple always had security as focus. It was one of the reasons I got my wife into using macs years ago, I never had to support her or worry about what website has managed to install ad malware.

We recently went back to PC's and it was immediately obvious we needed wall to wall antivirus protection which was not always the case on macs.

Never forget PRISM.

I don't think killing those enterprise cert was a moral gesture. They were just enforcing their walled garden.

From what I hear from people in the ad business, safari is still 100% trackable even without those cookies; it's just a bit harder to set up.

Wouldn't it be EPIC if apple produced a statement saying

"We are not going to keep any data at all about you unless we are forced to do so legally. We are bound by that contract with you when you purchase our device."

Then followed that with

"We're going to make it as hard as humanly possible for anyone else to collect and keep data about you if you own one of our devices. Including both legal and technical solutions and we will sue them for breach."

As it is, we're praising "least worse" which is effing awful. Apple's excrement stinks less than some others, eat it up!

Well that's what Apple might do if they really were in the business of being paid by customers to serve those paying customers and nobody else.

But of course Apple literally wrote the book on selling their customers as product to third parties. They've been wildly successful at it. Microsoft, IBM look on in envy at how they've managed to get away with it.

Since it has been massively profitable for them to turn their customers into their product, they see no reason to change and I guess why should they? Profit maximisation is their business, yours and my health and welfare is only of interest in service to maximising profit. If they did anything else they might be guilty of securities fraud(!) So yeah, they can be completely horrific and still win the PR battle because others seem even worse.

I see these statements of fact are always jarring for people to notice for the first time, especially if they quite like the machines (I do), and quite like liberal democracy and free market economics (again I do!) and more so that this utter hideousness is our best option right now because there is no option even remotely on the same planet as good. It is thoroughly depressing all round.

I still think Apple products are built on human rights abuses. I am currently trying to parse their most recent conflict minerals disclosure. It doesn't explicitly say "yes" but also doesn't clearly say "conflict-free" either.

Note that conflict-free at this time is so hard to be practically impossible. Fairphone, a company and phone founded explicitly with the goal of producing a phone without conflict minerals, still isn't conflict-free, and it's not for lack of trying.

Sure, Apple has more leverage, considering their size, but that also comes with its own set of problems. Plus, their customers have nowhere to go to in protest - all other phones are full of conflict minerals too.

I understand it's hard to make conflict-free computers.

I feel sick when apple says they are deeply committed to upholding human rights, while they continue manufacturing electronics, because I need authenticity. I would like Apple to use more of their resources to figure out how to do conflict-free consumer electronics.

I’m sure you also love to complain about the problems at the Foxconn ‘Apple factory’. Which in reality builds products for all manufacturers.

I just wanted to express to rawrmaan that I felt disturbed about his calling apple brave and moral when many aspects of their supply chain don't appeal to my sense of justice.

So "everyone else does it" is a valid defense?

Apple charges $1k for their monitor stands. I think they can afford to build their stuff at a factory that doesn't use modern slavery.

According to the article, "Apple said the update does not require any user interaction and is deployed automatically.". There's nothing moral about using "silent updates" (updates the user has no opportunity to decide whether to adopt).

Apple certainly wasn't looking out for their users' privacy and security when they let an iTunes bug go unfixed for 3 years (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8912714/Apple-iT... for more). That bug was said to allowed government spying. Apple's iPhone back door lets Apple delete a user's apps (per http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3358134/Apples-Jobs-co...) but Steve Jobs said it was okay because we can trust Apple ("Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull."). Back doors aren't moral, they exist to grant another party over the device the user bought and should own.

The root of all of this is the power of proprietary software (software the user can't inspect, share, or modify, and in some particularly restrictive cases can't always run). Proprietary software is unjust power over the user. There's nothing moral about proprietary software.

Requiring user confirmation for updating malware signatures would make them a lot less effective.

And in any case, there is a checkbox in the software update preferences labelled "Install system data files and security updates" which presumably allows you to opt out of these critical security updates.

And if you really wanted to have the zoom backdoor server run on your system, you could probably just strip the code signature and run it manually. Apple isn't stopping you from running whatever software you want on the Mac. Apple is helping all those users that don't follow Hacker News to keep their Mac safe.

>Requiring user confirmation for updating malware signatures would make them a lot less effective.

That seems highly unlikely to me. Do you have evidence to support that assertion.

On first use "Do you want us to automatically remove apps we think might damage your system: Y/n."

Don't users need a notification, at least, to inform their choices when installing software.

I guess Apple Computers would rather you just mindlessly relied on them, however, so anything that lets users know that Apple's system exposed them from risk is going to be avoided.

> Do you have evidence to support that assertion.

Every relative who never installs updates. I ask them why they are on an old version with major security holes that were on the news, but they just don't care. They always click "later".

You can turn it off if you don't like it. If one doesn't know enough to turn it off, one probably shouldn't be turning it off.

> There's nothing moral about using "silent updates"

Sorry, but this is absurd. Automatic security updates are necessity. And no user read through all changelogs of all updated software (except extremely critical systems).

Maybe you wanted to argue for ability to downgrade and disable updates?

There's no call to write in such patronizing ways.

It should be up to the user to decide whether to take on updates, regardless of what you think because that's their computer and not yours and you each deserve control over the computers you own. Just as freedom of speech means sometimes people will say things you disagree with, free software computers means not everyone will keep up with the updates. But not offering software freedom is unethical and neither Zoom nor Apple are distributing software freedom. Apple has a clear record of using the power of a proprietor to expose their users to harm (more examples at https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html ) and this story is an example of how Zoom apparently does as well.

What you and other posters are tellingly refusing to address is the immorality of software nonfreedom. As I wrote before, this is the core of the issue.

> It should be up to the user to decide whether to take on updates, regardless of what you think because that's their computer and not yours and you each deserve control over the computers you own.

Which is why the user can CHOOSE to have automatic updates. Or not to. The default when buying a new Mac is that automatic updates are enabled, because that’s the product Apple wants to sell and that they believe most of their users want to buy. It’s secure, it’s practical, it’s fun.

If you want to be your own IT department you simply deactivate all or some automatic updates. If you want a secure computer and trust Apple you leave it on.

I don’t see how this is a big moral question at all. Let people organize their computing needs in a way that’s safe and practical for them, not in the way that’s safe and practical for you.

>There's nothing moral about using "silent updates" (updates the user has no opportunity to decide whether to adopt).

There's nothing accurate about this description.

The user can turn off all update checking, or use the granular permissions to just turn off silent security updates.

>To allow macOS to update automatically, go to System Preferences > Software Update, then check Automatically keep my Mac up to date. The Mac offers some more granular update options than iOS. If you click Advanced…, you see a number of options:

https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/everything-you-need...

If you only want to turn off silent security updates, the option to uncheck is "Install system data files and security updates".

Every browser and most other important software now does auto-updates with no user interaction. ESPECIALLY for security issues.

Apple or anyone cannot silently pushing changes to my computer without my explicit consent – especially on unrelated things.

What Apple did here is also a dark pattern. We cannot commend them and normalize this behavior.

This is a dictatorial one-sided decision by Apple. What else can they do? Can nation state governments compel Apple to push stuff silently? Can this system be abused by hackers?

Why are we dependent on the good moral behavior of Apple business decision makers for the well-being of our digital lives? Haven't we learnt anything at all from all the incidents in the recent past w.r.t trust in corporate benevolence?

It's also on macOS license agreement:

"By using the Apple Software, you agree that Apple may download and install automatic updates onto your computer and your peripheral devices. You can turn off automatic updates altogether at any time by changing the automatic updates settings found within System Preferences."

It is enabled by default and if you don’t like that you can disable this behavior.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204536

We still have not heard anything officially from Apple. Based on other comments here, this removal happened via Malware Removal Tool (MRT) which itself is a hidden tool. If yes, then Apple needs to declare Zoom as Malware. For reference, Apple defines Malware here - https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mh27449/10.14....

On the other hand, Apple itself is guilty of not addressing gatekeeper vulnerability in time (is still yet to fix this bug): https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/25/macos-gatekeeper-vulnerabilit...

That boat sailed when google chrome launched 10+ years ago. Users don't care that applications come built-in with the ability to download a binary and execute it without the users permission. The market has chosen convenience over security. Yes, its a dark pattern, and Apple uses dark patterns themselves (for e.g. to trick you into updating iOS). Its going to be a monumental uphill battle to change this trend..

It's been rather disturbing to see this whole thing play out --- I'm not taking sides here, but Apple "flexing its arms" in this manner shows that it is willing and has the power to go beyond policing its App Store and such (which while I do not like, I feel it does have the right to) and involve itself in the affairs of third-party software which it did not originally install. (This is subtly different from updating things like OS files, for example. Some other comments here suggest that the installation of this update is controlled by a setting described as being for system related updates, which a user would expect to leave his/her third-party software alone.)

You may agree with its decision this time, but will you always agree? Apple's wielding of power in this way is likely to attract the attention of groups such as copyright/IP lobbyists, which have an immense desire to have all "non-authorised" files/software erased from all user's machines.

As the saying goes, "two wrongs don't make a right".

In any case, the idea of the OS/platform vendor meddling with third-party software that it doesn't like just feels wrong. I know Apple has historically held tight control over its mobile platforms, but the Mac is meant to be different.

I am not an Apple customer, and I now feel even more reluctant to become one.

lol they removed what would be called horrific spyware if it wasn’t made by Zoom and you’re over here on some lofty criticism about possible implications years into the future

any OS (and many other apps) that update have the power to do what you’re afraid of, and much more.

plus i don’t really see a bright line between system level software and an app when apps can access your video cam, mic, all your files - basically your whole computer.

That's it right there. This isn't some gray area, questionable thing like that time they pushed a David Bowie song onto people's iTunes. Remember that? People completely lost their minds over it, and I agree with the sentiment.

This isn't third-party anything. No one even knew this was running on their machine and it was demonstrably abusable. Good riddance!

any OS (and many other apps) that update have the power to do what you’re afraid of, and much more.

There's an ocean of difference between can and will.

plus i don’t really see a bright line between system level software and an app when apps can access your video cam, mic, all your files - basically your whole computer.

The setting ostensibly refers to the operating system, i.e. macOS, which I have no problems with Apple modifying if you've enabled that option, and which their EULA probably has a clause about. But from a legal perspective, modifying a third-party application which Apple does not own and did not install seems an overreach; unless their EULA explicitly grants them the right to do anything they want with the files of the system it's installed on, they could find themselves in legal trouble. (That notorious CFAA and the like.)

It's not spyware, this was not something that was intended to be abused, it's insecure software and its very common, you're running plenty of it right now.

This is effectively a press release to the Russian and Chinese governments that Apple could unilaterally remove all VPN software from Macs in a territory if they were compelled to.

If you don't think that's scary then you're just incapable of long term thinking.

There are reports there was another RCE that Zoom didn’t/wouldn’t fix. This is what Gatekeeper and the built-in anti-malware engine is suppose to do — remove malware. If you don’t want this feature, you can turn it off, but this is a sane default and a good thing.

Apple didn’t flex anything here, it removed malware from its users computers.

https://twitter.com/riskybusiness/status/1148824808236318721

If "malware" is going to include any software with security bugs, then Gatekeeper should just rm -rf the whole drive.

I was waiting for this comment.

> You may agree with its decision this time, but will you always agree?

Yes, I will. At least I am not going to lose sleep over it until Apple does abuse that power.

I am actually even more happy to be an Apple user knowing that the mothership said hell naw to the naw naw naw naw to this horseshit Zoom has been pulling.

If I were Apple, I'd be taking this as a personal slight against my entire user base.

> At least I am not going to lose sleep over it until Apple does abuse that power.

What if Apple abuses that power in ways that not everyone sees as "abuse", yet they are affected by it?

The reason you are not already seeing this act as abuse is because you happen to agree with it. What if you didn't agree? What if you were in the minority? What if the reason you where in the minority was that the majority simply didn't had the necessary understanding, experience and/or knowledge to see the issue you see?

If something can be abused, it will be abused, there isn't a matter of if, it is a matter of when. And with that in mind it is better to try and avoid being abused than wait for the abuse to happen and see what you can do after the fact.

> but Apple "flexing its arms" in this manner shows that it is willing and has the power to go beyond policing its App Store and such (which while I do not like, I feel it does have the right to) and involve itself in the affairs of third-party software which it did not originally install.

I love this. This is why I'll keep buying Apple.

> You may agree with its decision this time, but will you always agree?

To be honest I'm kinda sick of this argument. Someone brings this argument up _every single time_ a tech company takes action against something malicious. It's a strawman argument at best and at worst a way to give people an out on acting against something that could harm the user.

> Apple's wielding of power in this way is likely to attract the attention of groups such as copyright/IP lobbyists, which have an immense desire to have all "non-authorised" files/software erased from all user's machines.

This will never happen.

How is it a strawman? It's not even a hypothetical, has everyone forgotten already the constant dramas from the era in which Steve Jobs insisted iPhone apps would be banned if they weren't of "very good quality" or whatever the BS wording was? And when he went on his personal moral quest against porn?

This seems like overreach to me. It's annoying but it's not like the Zoom app was silently letting people watch me for hours through my webcam without anyone noticing - the app opens a full screen video sharing GUI for goodness sake. Is being joined to a VC without me wanting it when I click a link annoying? Sure. It also serves the attacker no real purpose and thus has never actually happened in the wild. It's also easily fixed. This is a storm in a teacup.

Moreover it seems from the last discussion of this on HN that videocall firms do this for a good reason - lots of users get confused by bad Safari permissions GUIs and end up locking themselves out of the app by cancelling the URL open prompt without thinking (which is apparently persistent!) Then they can't join the call. So the only reason these firms are using such a bad workaround to begin with is because Apple screwed up their user interfaces: why is this not on Apple to fix?

This appears to send a message to Mac devs that a single troublemaking blogger can cause Apple to kneejerkingly nuke features in your app overnight, regardless of whether you are fixing them, whether they're serious or not or whether it will result in legions of confused and stuck Mac users. Not a great message.

> Someone brings this argument up _every single time_ a tech company takes action against something malicious.

The argument isn't about taking action against something malicious, the argument is about the implications of being able to take that action and what sort of power the company has and if they should have it in light of past abuses (not necessarily but that company, but this is totally irrelevant since companies are made up of people that come and go, they do not have a single "brain" or morality).

> This will never happen.

You cannot guarantee that.

> Some other comments here suggest that the installation of this update is controlled by a setting described as being for system related updates, which a user would expect to leave his/her third-party software alone.

The setting is called "Install system data files and security updates": it's not just system components.

I suppose that depends on the application of the transitive property of English grammar: "Install (system) (data files and security updates)" or "Install (system data files) and (security updates)"

Isn't it a security update of a system data file (the malware removal tool configuration)?

And it is a security update meant to annihilate a serious malware threat, not to mess with legitimate third party software.

I'm so glad that Apple pushes updates to protect me as a user. Why would I want to be vulnerable to unwanted webcam access?

I am an Apple customer, and I now feel even happier about being one.

> Why would I want to be vulnerable to unwanted webcam access?

You shouldn't want. But at the same time i do not think it is a good idea to want Apple to be able to silently remove arbitrary applications they had nothing to do with from your computer.

At the very least they should ask the user about it or quarantine the software and inform the user about it. AFAIK this is what Windows Defender does when it finds malicious files.

I agree that this entire thing has been disturbing. Leaving behind a web server after you perform an uninstall by Zoom is unbelievable in my opinion. It's not even the fact that there was a vulnerability that makes me angry, it's the idea that you say uninstall, and it knowingly leaves a web server running on your machine.

Then, Apple, can push a silent update to simply kill software on your machine which as I understand it wasn't installed through the app store.

In this case I may be happy that it's no longer running, but the whole thing is disturbing. Looking at the Security & Privacy settings on my MacBook, I see nothing about running any anti-virus or anti-malware. The closest setting I can see that might be this is under software update, where I have the option to install automatically the system data files and security updates.

It's kind of a stretch for me to consider the ability to kill some software Apple might construe as malware at anytime the same thing as a "security update". To me, a security update would patch Apple code which had a vulnerability.

Where do I tell Apple to whitelist software in the future they might not like which I've chosen to install not going through the App Store?

It's actually news to me that I'm running Anti-X on my Mac, I didn't think I was.

Considering the fact that I have to learn new places for all the buttons every time Microsoft gets bored and changes things for the "better" I'm really disappointed.

System76 is looking better and better.

I'm fine with this. I can always leave Apple and go to Linux if they do something drastic.

After years of pouring thousands of dollars into Apple's coffers you expect that Linux will still be there when you need it...

Real principles would involve switching now.

I find it pretty hard to make sense of an argument that frames the removal of trivially exploitable, extremely privacy-violating malware from users' systems as a 'wrong'. The software itself continues to work and was minimally affected, if at all. If quickly intervening to protect your customers' privacy from an egregious threat is wrong, I want all my vendors to be wrong.

Given that it exposed Apple's users to possible privacy violations and Apple's actions didn't remove any function from Zoom (it operated fine, if installed when this action took place), I'd say I'm happier as an Apple customer.

They worked with Zoom to kill the zombie servers which were left behind after Zoom is uninstalled. Not really flexing. Zoom accidentally created malware, and Apple killed it using the same mechanisms they would to kill other malware.

That’s being pretty kind to a company that bypassed a system setting designed to respect user permissions by writing an always-running insecure web server —- and then refusing to remove that web server and even reinstalling itself when you remove the app.

Oh, and a company that defended the insecure web server up until the moment the public outrage exploded and/or the RCE it had willfully ignored was about to be revealed.

Oh, and a public company at that, that’s trying to convince businesses to use its product as it primary video chat system.

Apple worked with Zoom insofar as Apple cleaned up Zoom’s mess because of Zoom’s poor/unethical software practices.

How do you “accidentally” write software that can reinstall itself?

Logically this suggests not that Apple should stop removing malicious software but perhaps should have user visibility and control over the process.

For example if you classify possibly unwanted programs from annoying toolbars to randomware on a scale of 1-3 it might be reasonable to provide a checkbox to allow the user to switch between being warned of a negative program and being given the option to uninstall and having this happen automatically for non critical situations.

If the default is to on then 99% of users will be protected.

Arguably stuff like ransomware shouldn't be optional lest the malware set the option.

Does Windows not distribute automated tools via Windows Updates from time-to-time to remove Malware _and_ PUP (Potentially Unwanted Programs). I'd argue that the entire Zoom debacle is probably a PUP since a user _uninstalled_ Zoom. And the Zoom web server can _reinstall_ Zoom.

This sort of mentality means that nontechnical users will never be protected. Someone needs to take an active role in security and this kind of action is part of it. If the app developer is skirting the issue, Apple should be the company to step up. Who else will solve an issue on this scale? The developer should have stepped up and fixed it; instead they chose to dismiss it.

Apple made the right call for this instance, especially after the completely insufficient excuses given by Zoom’s CIO.

I'll never understand this argument:

> Apple's wielding of power in this way... the idea of the OS/platform vendor meddling with third-party software...

This is THEIR app store for THEIR operating system. Why in the world would they not be allowed to control their software's features or third party integrations? It reminds me of the ridiculous argument over Windows setting IE as its default browser (and I've been a web dev since the late 90s).

> This is THEIR app store for THEIR operating system.

On MY computer.

> Why in the world would they not be allowed to control their software's features or third party integrations?

Because it is not THEIR computer but MY computer.

This isn't about the App Store, I thought I made that clear in my original comment. While I disagree with the decisions it makes, I think Apple certainly has the right to control its App Store.

It reminds me of the ridiculous argument over Windows setting IE as its default browser

What do you mean by that? Instead you reminded me that saying "$our_competitor's product is not secure, so we've helpfully removed it and recommend you use $our_equivalent instead" is likely to run afoul of antitrust laws.

I'm actually quite happy to have Apple police its App Store and offer patches that eliminate security holes and malware. There's nothing wrong with Apple trying to make your computer safer and less prone to exploitation, in my opinion.

How do you feel about Windows Defender?

Windows Defender will not silently remove the software completely, it will quarantine it and make sure you know about its actions (i mean, it does make sure you know it exists even when there are no issues by its constant "Windows defender scanned your system and found no issues" notifications).

At this point it is up to the user to decide what to do and most non-technical users will leave it at that (and wont know what else to do) which should keep them safe.

The same way I feel about antivirus in general: they have tons of false positives that turn them into an effective form of censorware (cracks, keygens, demoscene stuff, Hello World programs[1][2], etc.) and are very unlikely to actually protect you from a 0-day. If I happen to have a file I want to run but feel suspicious and can't be bothered analysing it myself, which is a very rare case indeed, I upload it to one of the services that scans it with a dozen or more AVs to see what they think. Even then I will not use my main OS to try it first.

That said, in the context of my original comment, AVs are a bit of a special case because their sole and expected purpose is to detect and remove software they don't like.

[1] https://www.csoonline.com/article/3216765/security/heres-why...

[2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22926360/malwarebytes-gi...

Or the Malicious Software Removal Tool distributed and run regularly by Windows Update?

I think the difference here is that apple explicitly does not have an "anti malware" configuration section of the MacOS control panel. There's configuration for automated system updates, which most technical people understand to mean security patches and things that are equivalent to windows hotfixes and servicepacks.

I am with the "two wrongs don't make a right" people here. Zoom was reckless and their casual disregard for the initial security report left a very bad taste in my mouth. I'm now highly unlikely to use one of their products willingly. But having Apple initiate unattended removal of software that a person willingly installed on their own workstation machine is also unacceptable, unless they specifically opted in and checked "enable" on something that is very similar to windows defender.

How well I remember everyone abandoning Microsoft Windows back in the Windows 2000 era when Microsoft first started using Windows Update to push out their monthly Malicious Software Removal Tool, he said sarcastically.

If you can't see a difference between deleting files not authorized by the person who bought, installed, and uses the OS, and deleting files not authorized by third parties, I don't know what to tell you.

Well said. Apple loves to flex muscle as a show of force - virtue signaling - when there is some great drama going on. It is terrifying to know they have covert remote root code execution on Macs and iPhones at all times, which they may use without your consent of even knowledge. To me, that is a greater security risk and the reason I will not use their products in favor of open source operating systems only. It saddens me to see how soon people forget Apple participates in PRISM surveillance and has been literally criticized for human rights violations in China, yet invite them to control their computers. I expect people will down-vote this comment, but expressing my disgust for such an authoritarian world view is more important to me, and should be recognized as such by the hacker community. Unfortunately it seems too many of us will sacrifice autonomy and control for the promise of centrally-administered, ominous "security" working in the shadows.

The RCE is a given for anything that has automatic updates enabled, and IMHO isn't really the focus of this issue; the main concern is with the scope of what they are allowed to "update", and the legal ramifications thereof.

Yes, Apple does have the power to change every bit on your hard disk if you let it. Things like EULAs are supposed to govern to what extent they can use that power.

It's been really interesting to see how quickly the original Zoom response of "there's nothing wrong with this, everybody does it" ended up being reversed.

I wonder if there's a known exploit for the Zoom server specifically, or if Apple discovered one while looking into it. It seems strange for them to go to these lengths in this case when it sounds like other software has been using a similar technique too. Maybe it's just the reinstallation aspect that makes Zoom's case exceptional?

It was the combination of the vulnerability in the Zoom client combined with this behaviour in the web server:

"Additionally, if you’ve ever installed the Zoom client and then uninstalled it, you still have a localhost web server on your machine that will happily re-install the Zoom client for you, without requiring any user interaction on your behalf besides visiting a webpage. This re-install ‘feature’ continues to work to this day."

In the news segment of this week's episode of Risky Business[0], one of the hosts mentions (starting around 3:40) he has some information that there was an RCE disclosed to Zoom back "some months ago". He further says that @Jlleitschuh (the person reporting the web server issue earlier this week) got 90% of the way to finding it. So...yeah, speculation only, but maybe Apple became aware of this and dropped the hammer.

[0]: https://www.risky.biz/RB547/

They also discuss a case, where a user uninstalls Zoom, but does not remove the web server, remaining forever vulnerable, because the fix from Zoom will not reach them. That explains the Apple involvement.

After that PR spin in response to threat disclosure in the original article, I am very skeptical of Zoom's PR machine.

> Zoom spokesperson Priscilla McCarthy told TechCrunch: “We’re happy to have worked with Apple on testing this update. We expect the web server issue to be resolved today. We appreciate our users’ patience as we continue to work through addressing their concerns.”

Yeah, I bet.

Yeah, I'm quite curious now if Zoom's reversal and decision to remove the server was because Apple informed them they were going to forcibly remove it like this.

It looked like they decided to remove the server themselves (or at least, as a response to pressure), but maybe they didn't actually have a choice at all.

Yeah, exactly. Software you've uninstalled gives away permission to use your camera to a remote web page? That's malware, and would get most apps banned permanently.

I got all my colleagues to uninstall Zoom and related artefacts. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. They probably have stats that show this. Too late for me. We will just never use it again unless all other improving options suddenly fail (which is highly unlikely). This isn't because I hate Zoom or and annoyed at their response, it's because it's too late. I've uninstalled it and most likely won't have a reason to reinstall it ever. Reverse inertia.

Other software used similar techniques for starting calls, but I believe that Zoom is unique in that calls can turn the camera on without any user interaction.

Zoom also didn't reverse their decision until there was a huge amount of public backlash.

>I wonder if there's a known exploit for the Zoom server specifically

There is, though it's not public yet.

I always wondered why the zoom app required root permissions, which is why I never installed it in the first place. What would a video conferencing app ever need root permissions for?! Now we know: a backdoor.

Thank god for Apple putting down the law. This is why I happily pay premium prices...

I can't verify since I don't have it installed but I see no reason why this webserver would need root permissions. If it's asking for root it must be for something else.

Quite a few apps ask for root during installation. But now you have me wondering which apps ask for root and which don't. Would be neat if there was a huge app registry website that could show this. Name and shame the ones that ask for root..

Let me introduce you to the nice folks over at Objective See.. https://objective-see.com/products.html

They have a bunch of cool little apps (that are free) like BlockBlock that let you know when things are happening you wouldn't have otherwise allowed.

For example, BlockBlock warned me randomly about 30 minutes ago about an app that was being silently installed in the background.. something I hadn't seen before called MRT.app.

Turns out - that was Apple silently updating the OS to protect against Zoom. Wouldn't have known if it weren't for these apps.

> Let me introduce you to the nice folks over at Objective See.. https://objective-see.com/products.html

The "nice folks" at Objective-See is Patrick Wardle, a former NSA rootkit expert who would like nothing more than to install various close-sourced components on your computer.

That’s funny. Windows’ own tool for these matters is called... MRT.exe

Wow, neat stuff. Several machines ago, I used to run Little Snitch, but never got past the trial. At some point I searched for free alternatives but didn't find anything. LuLu seems to be very similar, so I'm giving it a try!

Funny how both companies have "objective" in their names.

Dropbox is one. It always prompts me for my password whenever it launches. I always cancel. It works perfectly without it.

They ship a pkg installer package that pretty much always elevates, even if it doesn’t actually need it. While it could in theory install as the user, I don’t even think the Installer app supports this configuration anymore (at least last time I tried I wasn’t able to).

Maybe an improved ability to remain persistent after uninstall, and to reinstall the app?

If it's asking for root it must be for something else.

Occam's Razor, asking for root was probably just the path of least resistance for the Zoom developers.

Huh? Why is it ok for Apple or anyone to do silent installs on my computer? As a customer, why am I getting this information from YC/Techcrunch and not Apple?

What else have they pushed like this? Is there a transparent log? Can we verify if their track record is clean? How many times have they silently broken and fixed their own things? How do we know they won't abuse this?

Isn't this the same dark pattern that we criticized zoom for? Did I consent to Apple doing silent editorial changes to my system?

For having exercised this editorial privilege, will Apple take accountability for every thing that is done by every app on my computer?

It seems like we are being slow-boiled into accepting outrageous things as normal.

I don't want to come across as confrontational, but I find this kind of response exhausting. I do not want control of everything on my computer. I don't have time or expertise to decide on whether to accept each and every security update, particularly ones that involve a web server which was installed by stealth and which isn't removed when the app is uninstalled. I want to outsource these kinds of decisions to people more qualified than me, and if I don't have to pay extra for those people (beyond the extra expense of buying Apple products) all the better.

If you want complete control over your computer you have the choice of getting yourself a PC with some flavour of *nix, and combing through each update as it comes. I really don't like the future of Apple that you seem to want. Apple has made missteps, sure - like that idiotic U2 album - but I actively want things like this to happen, and I imagine the vast majority of Apple users do too (if they actually ever think about it).

Do you recognize any middle ground between the current state and your extreme scenario of poring through every update?

Honestly, for my purposes (I'm technical director of a digital media agency), not really. I install updates automatically (apart from first-version releases of macOS), and appreciate the gatekeeping aspect of the App Store for everyday software.

When it comes to public-facing servers that we run it's a different matter of course, but then I'm performing (and delegating) the same task that I want Apple to perform for my MacBook Pro.

It's the same response like the one when dropbox released. "It's trivial to spin up a server, set up a file sync, blah blah blah, why do we need dropbox".

I'm the same as you. The whineyness exhausts me. Let the market decide. I just want shit to work.

> What else have they pushed like this? Is there a transparent log?

Yes.

    sh-3.2# softwareupdate --history
    Display Name                                       Version    Date
    ------------                                       -------    ----
    Safari Technology Preview                          87         07/10/2019, 21:40:18
    Gatekeeper Configuration Data                      171        07/03/2019, 14:00:23
    Safari Technology Preview                          86         07/02/2019, 01:27:12
    MRTConfigData                                      1.42       06/29/2019, 11:52:13
    Gatekeeper Configuration Data                      170        06/29/2019, 11:50:33
    Safari Technology Preview                          85         06/13/2019, 14:48:10
    Safari Technology Preview                          84         06/10/2019, 00:51:57
    TCC Configuration Data                             17.0       06/05/2019, 07:04:21
    Gatekeeper Configuration Data                      167        06/04/2019, 04:17:26
    Safari Technology Preview                          83         05/30/2019, 19:48:10
    iTunes Device Support Update                                  05/15/2019, 16:27:15
    Safari Technology Preview                          82         05/15/2019, 16:27:15
    macOS 10.14.5 Update                                          05/15/2019, 16:27:15
    Gatekeeper Configuration Data                      166        05/14/2019, 02:36:07
    Safari Technology Preview                          81         05/03/2019, 00:47:53
    MRTConfigData                                      1.41       05/02/2019, 06:36:59
    XProtectPlistConfigData                            2103       05/02/2019, 06:36:37

And the list goes all the way back to when I bought my Mac. Among the list above, only the Safari Technology Preview updates and the macOS 10.14.5 update are initiated manually, as far as I can remember.

Apple has done silent updates for Gatekeeper, the macOS code signing/file quarantine/light anti-malware framework ever since Yosemite. These are done silently unless you explicitly disable all updates and only show up as a visible item when you manually list updates using the softwareupdate command line tool, I think. AFAIK these are just config files and hash databases or similar.

You can view the history of these installs by running softwareupdate --history | grep -E "^MRT|^Gatekeeper"

I see an average of 2 updates per month.

FWIW Apple can also mark something as visible (but install automatically) with a certain config file key. A blog mentions this as being done for patching the NTP bug from a while back:

> Marking these updates as ConfigData cues the App Store to not display these as available software updates in the App Store’s list of software updates. These updates are meant to be under Apple’s control and to be as invisible as possible.

> Meanwhile, an automatically installed software update like OS X NTP Security Update 1.0 shows up as a normal software update, but has extra keys in its catalog listing to mark it as a critical update whose automatic installation is set to occur as soon as possible.

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/managing-automa...

> These are done silently unless you explicitly disable all updates

You can turn off silent security updates from System Preferences without affecting software update checks for other components.

It seems that unticking this checkbox causes those updates to be disabled completely (and not just converted into visible updates in the Software Updater that you have the option of installing, like I thought it would). I had that option unticked and my last "MRTConfigData" update was a year out of date.

The option is called "Automatically: Install system data files and security updates" in the Software Update advanced settings.

> Isn't this the same dark pattern that we criticized zoom for? Did I consent to Apple doing silent editorial changes to my system?

Because as opposed to what Zoom did, this is a feature that you can turn off if you want in "Updates" preference pane.

There is an undisclosed RCE that prompted Apple to act. https://twitter.com/riskybusiness/status/1148819622558236673...

Someone mentioned this above, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20407699

Makes the story MUCH worse in my opinion. An unpatched RCE that they left open until someone else got 90% of the way there and went public with it.

It sounds like silent updates from Apple without automatic updates turned on is also an undisclosed RCE - or an Apple backdoor, depending on how fine a point you wish to put on it.

Being my OS or hardware vendor does not entitle you to permanent RCE on the machine that now belongs to me.

Unless of course this is just a XProtect rules update or a Gatekeeper CRL update, then ignore what I said.

It is.

From the article, this sounds like it was a GateKeeper change, de-whitelisting the signature, rather than an update, per se.

Of note, Apple has had its own malware detection and removal system in place since the Mountain Lion - Snow Leopard timeframe. Since this article speaks to removal, it's sounding like the Zoom local server may have had its signature added to that system.

So the local server is not a regular price of software with a vulnerability, it is now considered malware?

Beyond the unsolicited reinstallation (== malware) behavior other commenters rightly mentioned, the entire existence of the vulnerable server was a hack to work around a Safari security feature. Zoom wanted to eliminate an extra user click, required by Safari to confirm that it was OK to invoke a local application based on the public zoom link. This server was an implementation of that security "workaround".

That makes this server at least doubly malware. And "vulnerability" understates the case: a negligent implementation that utterly disregarded any security concerns should be considered beyond the pale. That times 1000 for a major software vendor like Zoom.

The server was intentionally left behind, and running, by the "uninstaller". The server would respond to requests by reinstalling the intentionally uninstalled software.

That's malware.

The server itself was deliberately added to work around a Safari security feature, that was designed specifically to prevent what they wanted: allowing arbitrary web content to open an app without user consent. They literally added an always on, persistent server, to avoid a security dialog

Yes because even if you purposely uninstalled the application it would reinstall if you went to a link even by accident without really notifying you that it did so.

So yes, malware.

That's Apple's closed garden, even when they allow you to sideload application, they still have the ultimate decision. Of course it's not malware, but probably enough users have vulnerable software which could be remotely exploited, that they decided to blacklist it.

More likely this was done via a signature update to xprotect, which is essentially a background antivirus process in macOS.

Since the update is called "MRTConfigData" - and that has to do with XProtect according to https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250079600 - you're probably right.

Doesn't appear so, current XProtect version remains at 2103 which was released a couple months ago now.

The update from today updates the MRT configuration data.

I haven’t checked, but are you looking at the version of the binary itself, or the MRT signature files it uses

Looks like the ZoomOpener app is still present on my machine but it’s not running anymore and it shows as unticked in the Login Items preferences.

I wonder if this was the real reason behind the Zoom backflip. It certainly cannot be good for business if your app gets marked as malware.

Seriously though, they should have owned the mistake, apologised and reversed their decision rather than handling it with a PR spin. It is a great product but somehow it has left me with little trust for zoom. It's probably still not too late.

Does anyone know if bluejeans et all are also removing this? Or does it require public shaming, like the zoom case?

Wasn't there once a company with the motto "Don't be evil."? If that motto is abandoned, Apple should claim it since they genuinely try do their best to live by it.

Not so fast. E.g. have you read "History will not be kind to Jony Ive"[1]?

Apple has its share of evil. Another example is preventing people from repairing their own Apple devices.

[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywyjmw/history-will-not-b...

Apple only does so when it's also convenient to their bottom line. They provide the Chinese government backdoor access to iMessage, remove VPN apps from their store to enable censorship, and have we all forgotten they are a PRISM partner? These actions seem pretty "evil" to me.

> They provide the Chinese government backdoor access to iMessage

No. What gave you this idea? iMessage is end-to-end encrypted. The keys are managed by the devices themselves. There is no facility to backdoor or intercept the messages.

Apple acts as a registration server, notifying your devices when a new device signed in as you joins the pool but the devices themselves tell you when this has happened. That’s all client-side. If the server didn’t tell the client about a new peer it would never encrypt a copy of the message for that peer and that peer wouldn’t get the messages.

> iMessage is end-to-end encrypted. The keys are managed by the devices themselves. There is no facility to backdoor or intercept the messages.

That is only a half-truth. Apple controls the key infrastructure; they may replace your keys with arbitrary ones at the demand, coercion or compromise by any number of bad actors. The software is closed source, making it impossible to verify any actual claims made otherwise. If they truly valued privacy, why not open source iMessage, allow users to verify iMessage keys, hire an independent third party to audit their infrastructure, or all of the above?

Moreover, Apple has moved iCloud infrastructure to Chinese data centers to enable spying on millions of innocent people. They have removed apps from their store which circumvent Chinese censorship. These are truly shameful acts which has appropriately drawn criticism from human rights watch organizations.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/25/apple-moves-icloud-encrypt...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/24/apple-moves-to-store-icloud-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/29/technology/china-apple-ce...

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/06/26/can-appl...

Imagine saying this with a straight face.

They are basically solving a self-inflicted problem. The real issue there is the fact that macOS doesn't provide a standarized way to completely uninstall an app.

It does provide a standard way to uninstall an app: drag it to the trash can.

I would say that what Zoom did was have their app intentionally install malware that bypassed this normal uninstall.

I do think that it would be great to have a more thoroughly sandboxed idea of what an “app” is on the desktop, though.

Snapd, flatpak, appimage all can do this on Linux. Even docker/singularity can sort of do the same for some, if you pass through all the necessary devices and sockets from the host. When you remove the app (or container) all the files it brought with it or created during runtime are now gone.

Even the regular Linux package managers like apt, dnf, pacman track which files were installed by which packages, so they can be removed when the package is uninstalled. The downside to these is they don't track files created at runtime so a lot of the config or cache files created can be left over if the package itself doesn't remove them.

A sandboxed macOS app would offer similar protections as what snapd, flatpak, etc provide on Linux.

> Even the regular Linux package managers like apt, dnf, pacman track which files were installed by which packages, so they can be removed when the package is uninstalled.

Technically speaking, Zoom could have abused dpkg post-install scripts, or pulled similar tricks, to install their malware server and leave it behind after the package was removed. Linux distributions aren't invincible to these shenanigans.

The install scripts in rpm/deb can do all sorts of stuff that doesn't get tracked/reversed. There are package linters to help detect some of this buts it's largely a faith based endeavor either way.

> all the files it brought with it or created during runtime are now gone.

How would this work with apps that create things that a user would expect to persist, like downloads (kept after uninstalling a browser) or office documents (kept after uninstalling the office suite), or media production apps, IDEs, etc.?

It could have some rule like "let it be if it's in the user home directory" or "only remove stuff in these system directories" but it seems kind of fragile, like what if you use a text editor to create a system config file and then uninstall the text editor?

Malware intends to harm you, with intent to steal or destroy or hold hostage your information, data, and computing resources.

Does the ZoomOpener app have malicious intentions towards you, your computing resources, or your data? Not just “could it be unintentionally exploited” - note the unintentionality! - but specifically “this was intended to harm”.

If not, then you need to reconsider your use of the word “malware” - a word shortened from “malicious software” - and find a better way to describe software design patterns that aren’t compatible with “drag it to the trash” but also aren’t intended to harm.

Adobe Creative Cloud, any $$$$ audio software DRM, and HP printer drivers all use similar patterns of “can’t just drag it to the trash”, and are all similarly annoying to remove - but they are not malware, any more than this ZoomOpener is.

>The real issue there is the fact that macOS doesn't provide a standarized way to completely uninstall an app. reply

And Windows does? Uninstallers are completely at the behest of application developers. No consumer OS but iOS actually provides any sort of true app level sandboxing.

> And Windows does?

Control Panel “add and remove programs” usually works?

There’s no equivalent on Mac. Yes, dragging the app to the trash is a thing but that leaves behind content in ~/Library/caches, ~/Library/Application Support, and ~/Library/Preferences . It’s been somewhat of an issue with Mac ever since they first put a hard drive on the original ones back in the 80s...

Edit: I literally cleared several GB of junk out of my application support folder left behind by just one app today, so it’s fresh on my mind. OmniDiskSweeper is great for finding this stuff.

Control Panel “add and remove programs” usually works?

All that does is launch the app’s uninstall process. The app is free to leave whatever crap it wants to on your system.

The point is, all of those files are generally still left behind on Windows as well. Uninstalling a program in Windows is roughly equivalent to dragging it into the trash in macOS.

Have you checked ProgramData, Local, and Roaming recently? Or your registry?

Also, Add/Remove only works if the program adds itself there. And remove only works if the program added an uninstaller. Also, even then, it still leaves crap behind.

Doesn't "Add and Remove Programs" just run whatever custom Uninstaller came bundled with the program? Is there anything it can do with programs that don't come with an uninstaller?

"add and remove programs" is still relying on the application developer to get it right. I've seen plenty of apps leave behind crap.

> OmniDiskSweeper is great for finding this stuff.

iTrash [1] is also worth mentioning. It uses the Levenshtein distance algorithm [2] to find all of the junk related to an app.

[1] http://www.osxbytes.com

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance

Why do they put that stuff in there instead of keeping it in the .app folder?

Flatpak, Appimage, etc.

Zoom is even available in Flathub, and that's how I use it.

> No consumer OS but iOS actually provides any sort of true app level sandboxing.

Android does, too.

Which is completely frustrating, because Mac is totally in the position of using its built-in capabilities to deal with this. The Mac Bundle (.app) format could solve this entirely. All application specific data should be written inside of the bundle folder, so that when you delete the app, you delete the thing entirely.

I mean, maybe you need a "user data" bundle of sorts tied to the specific application. If you delete the app, it deletes all the user data bundles as well.

The default installer and bundle runners should be controlling the process. "XYZ App is attempting to write data files outside of its bundle location. These may not be cleaned up if you delete the application. Do you want to continue?"

The unix permissions system and the Mac bundle format should completely solve this problem. I honestly just don't get why this still happens. Doesn't iOS at least get this right?

As a Mac app developer, you mostly have to go out of your way to install things[1] outside of the app bundle, and you typically don't want to because that's only extra maintenance you have to do to update / version those files. Most apps don't, and that's why most apps actually are effectively removed when you drag the bundle into the trash.

There is already a concept of a "user data" directory for the app, which is determined just like on iOS. There are also other directories for things like caches that the system can clear if it's low on disk space.

Of course they could sandbox Mac apps just like on iOS, and Mac App Store apps essentially already work that way.

I can assure you, though, that any barrier they put in the way of letting non-App Store apps run however they always have will be met by strong resistance. It's easy to point to this occurrence with Zoom and call it unreasonable, but prompts like what you're describing will undoubtedly disrupt what other people see as totally valid use cases and ruining of the UX.

[1] By "things", I mean things like a separate web server process. Apps do store files in app-specific folders like "Application Support" by convention, but not for separate processes.

Thanks for the reply, really good stuff.

But what I don't get, why even have an "Application Support" directory at all. There is absolutely nothing of value added to me (as a user) to have files stored there. It's just one more place I have to look to clean up after an application is deleted. So dumb and adds zero value.

I'll put my files into Documents (or whatever). And you (as an application developer) put your files in your app bundle directory. That should be the contract for most (all?) user space applications.

I agree my prompt idea is generally poor and wouldn't work, it was mostly just for discussion purposes. But the mechanics of a fix for this are in place, rogue daemons that can't be deleted are just unacceptable.

I'd argue that linux distros have this power, too, and they haven't either (unless you use a snap, which has compatibility and performance issues).

If you uninstall a .deb or .rpm or AppImage, the files you wrote into XDG_CONFIG_HOME (defaults to ~/.config) won't magically get cleaned up.

I'd love to be wrong here, BTW! I've had several PhotoStructure users try to reset their configuration by uninstall/reinstall, but that just removes the files in the installer, it doesn't do anything to files in user directories (and I'd be really surprised if that was ever a thing). Can you imagine the havoc from `apt remove vscode` and having it remove user's keybindings, extensions, and anything else?

>~/.config) won't magically get cleaned up. >I'd love to be wrong here,

Isn't this what apt purge appname does ? or is something missing

Form the apt-get docs:

purge - purge is identical to remove except that packages are removed and purged (any configuration files are deleted too).

> The default installer and bundle runners should be controlling the process. "XYZ App is attempting to write data files outside of its bundle location. These may not be cleaned up if you delete the application. Do you want to continue?"

If you do that, the entire system stops working. Everyone will just click "ok" and then still gets mad when uninstalling doesn't fully clean things up.

So users who want crapware can get it, and users who want a clean secure system can get it, and app developers are pressured to build apps correctly. And App Store/GateKeeper can prevent misbehavior for apps distributiled through Apple's friendly marketplace. Win-win-win.

Well, that's fair. But hopefully in the process of getting mad, it starts to reflect negatively on the application vendors and/or Apple directly. Maybe that will be enough for them to change.

Maybe the app bundle runner should be logging files written outside of the bundle folder? Then the uninstall process will wipe those out?

> All application specific data should be written inside of the bundle folder, so that when you delete the app, you delete the thing entirely

Not even Apple follows that ideology though, I can't be the only one who has had to delete the gigs of Garageband data from ~/Library/Application Support on an under-specced company laptop 128GB SSD

Nor does Windows for that matter. Running installshield with some command line parameter doesn't count. Linux package managers come close, but not all third party apps are installed like that.

Having a standard installer toolkit that comes with the os and used by many os updates along with a centralized uninstall UI is nothing?

> Having a standard installer toolkit that comes with the os and used by many os updates along with a centralized uninstall UI is nothing?

If we are talking about OS updates, OSX has the same thing.

You are not required to use Windows Installer. And even if you do, you are not guaranteed that everything will be removed, be it due to malice or incompetence.

Not even Linux can guarantee that. Something like the Nix package manager would be closer to what's required. Plus a sandbox.

Funny, it is also self-inflicted because Safari inspired Zoom to do this hack by breaking the correct behavior of protocol links.

> This is a workaround to a change introduced in Safari 12 that requires a user to confirm that they want to start the Zoom client prior to joining every meeting. The local web server enables users to avoid this extra click before joining every meeting.

https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2019/07/08/response-to-video-...

I don’t understand how a “you’re about to jump out of the app” confirm panel is breaking protocol links. I actually want this behavior for zoom and any other app...

The first time you use that protocol, of course a warning is appropriate. To prompt the user on _every_ external protocol click seems.. hostile to the concept of linking

It adds an extra, confusing step, that is not necessary most of the time.

I think "breaking the correct behavior" might be a bit of misleading term -- it's obvious that in some contexts we would want to be warned about the context switch and in others we'd be annoyed by it. I could totally understand why Zoom would, for frequent users, want the users not to get an annoying dialogue. On the other hand, if I'm a rare user or don't know a program is installed on my system, the context switch dialogue would be super useful alerting me that something is happening.

So I think you could argue Apple might want to let you override that, I don't know what the language is and whether there's a "click here to skip this next time" box on the dialogue. It's possible they got the annoyance versus security tradeoff wrong.

But imho they didn't break the correct behavior any more than Microsoft "broke the correct behavior" of privilege escalation by adding a dialogue box with UAC in Windows 7 .

> But imho they didn't break the correct behavior any more than Microsoft "broke the correct behavior" of privilege escalation by adding a dialogue box with UAC in Windows 7 .

well, it did a shitton didn't it ? to this day, most people I know disable UAC because of how annyoing it is.

Zoom deliberately circumvented Apple's standard package format, contrary to security interests. Zoom is basically behaving like a virus here.

Neither does Windows or Linux. I don't think you can have such a standardized way on a flexible general-purpose OS.

What apple should do though is provide an API that developers can hook into, where in when the user drags the app to the trash, it can also uninstall anything else the app placed elsewhere on the system.

They do! The app developers didn't follow the guidelines.

it really does provide a very nice and effective standard way to bundle components needed by an app altogether and to manage them appropriately.

The developers in this case didn't bother trying to use it.

The bigger question -- what other desktop apps have similar, latent daemons hanging around? I'm always wary of installing stuff like this (e.g. zoom, go2meeting, teamviewer).

Anyone know of other sneaky apps to avoid?

Razer gaming keyboard drivers spin up a webserver for controlling the chroma, which I've always found scary. (Using the much more reasonable community open source drivers that don't do that.)

Why in the world would a keyboard driver need to run a webserver? Client software should just be able to call driver functions directly in order to configure the keyboard. It sounds like they hired a web developer to write their driver configuration tool and didn't give any architectural constraints or have someone managing the project who knows best practices or security principles.

Most devs of most OS X desktop apps are convinced their junk is important enough to pollute LaunchAgents with and none ask for permission. Be a "normal" user, install software you think is useful and you'll end up running a hosting service for a thousand "latent" daemons and "helper" programs.

Not as serious as leaving an httpd around and then letting sites to hot mic you with it -- obviously -- but on par in terms of a few select adjectives.

I had toyed with using Little Snitch, https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html, to let me know what connections each program is making but after like a day it was just too complex to get going.

Wonder if the LitteSnitch list of procs had the Zoom Daemon.

I can’t find a reference of the top of my head, but I recall s Logitech mouse(!) also installed a local web server.

Dropbox

I don't know about the rest of you, but since crap like Zoom runs just fine in Firefox, that's where I'm keeping it. Ironically, I trust the browser's sandboxing way more than the vendor's app, which inevitably seem to open up my computer to some crazy vulnerability or phone home with my personal data or some other nonsense. I feel, perhaps wrongly, that I have more control over what the browser executes and what (web) applications can access, so Zoom, BlueJeans, Slack, Discord, and the rest are getting trashed.

And why did Apple shut down the app regardless? Was it not properly patched? Did Apple not care?

Because zoom’s patch will only help users still using and updating zoom while those who have uninstalled zoom are still vulnerable (because the uninstalled leaves the web server behind)

"(because the uninstalled leaves the web server behind)"

For cripes sake...

Probably to not allow it to run if the users didn't update Zoom.

I wonder what happens now to the Product Owner who decided it was OK to install hidden web server on user machines?

Probably nothing, and mutual lamentation from product and marketing people about the loss of their easiest customer retention strategy.

eng has responsibility here for going forward with this

This was likely a product manager decision, implemented by some hapless kid fresh out of college.

Has anyone checked that `dpkg --purge zoom` does the right thing, on debian/ubuntu?

Keep in mind dpkg never removes user data.

So that said, I checked, and it removes everything zoom installs that isn't in a user directory, plus (there is an extra script that does this):

    remove_folder "/opt/zoom"
    remove_folder "$HOME/.zoom/logs"
    remove_folder "$HOME/.cache/zoom"

Which is stupid since it's removing this from root, who probably never ran zoom.

Note it removes logs from .zoom, but not the directory itself. Which is good, since there might be user data in there (chat logs, and recordings).

Unlike Macs, there is no hidden webserver.

There is also (yes, it's commented out):

    #logged_in_users=$(who -q | head -n 1)
    #sorted_users=$(echo "$logged_in_users"|tr " " "\n"|sort|uniq|tr "\n" " ")
    #for user in $sorted_users;do
    #       echo "removing $(grep -w ^$user /etc/passwd | cut -d ":" -f6)""/.zoom..."
    #       remove_folder "$(grep -w ^$user /etc/passwd | cut -d ":" -f6)""/.zoom"
    #       echo "removing $(grep -w ^$user /etc/passwd | cut -d ":" -f6)""/.config/zoomus.conf..."
    #       remove_file "$(grep -w ^$user /etc/passwd | cut -d ":" -f6)""/.config/zoomus.conf"

Thanks.

I was thinking to myself “it is too bad Apple can’t just disable this like they could have on iOS, cause I suspect most people I know with Macs would be vulnerable to it and it is next to impossible to explain to a nontechnical user how to actually uninstall this”.

Kudos to Apple for nuking this malware.

This explains why I couldn't find it on my system... was scratching my head when the .zoom folder wasn't on either system that had the Zoom.app.

Strong work Apple.

Apple is punishing Zoom, because they explicitly built this mess to get around Safari appropriately prompting users to decide whether they wanted to open the app on each meeting join. If you are a safari user, there was never a vulnerability. You’d be prompted. Why is no one talking about Chrome and Firefox’s lax security posture here? It’s frustrating.

Note that dropbox also opens up three servers on your Mac, though when you exit the app they go away, so are arguably discretionary. I assume they are for lan syncing, though I don't know why that would require three ports.

They're blocked in my little snitch anyway so no problem.

Disturbs me somewhat that Apple has a way to silently push changes to laptops without user interaction.

You can disable it in Preferences -> Software Update -> Advanced -> Install system data files and security updates

From there you can manage the updates manually from the command line with the `softwareupdate` command. e.g. `softwareupdate --list --include-config-data` will show available updates, `softwareupdate -ia --include-config-data` will install them, etc.

This has been in place since 10.6 Snow Leopard. It's part of their built-in anti-malware system (MRT + XProtect + Gatekeeper).

It's no different than a virus scanner auto-updating its signatures.

Except that if you auto-update disabled, you'd be somewhat surprised if the virus scanner could update it's signatures.

Windows update does the same, no?

Windows Update leaves behind a lot of logs with KB entries, so I don't think they're trying to do anything secretly. If Microsoft changes your software, you know about it.

When I was at Microsoft, Windows' policy was only to kill applications like this with the explicit consent of the manufacturer (i.e. they were usually asking us to do it because they are unable to patch themselves, not the other way around), and only with a very specific version range.

Think of it as a malware scanner, like Windows Defender

Where can I find the technical details regarding this patch?

Another application I've been running for years won't start-up anymore and is logging:

> Thu 11 Jul 2019 23:12:59 AEST Waiting for web server to come up

It may be coincidental, but would be good to know what Apple changed.

I had a prospective client/customer, just today, schedule a Zoom meeting for tomorrow. I was aware of the issue this week, but I wasn't really going to make a lot of noise with someone who was just a prospect.

I figured.. this has probably evolved already to an acceptable situation.

So the calendar invite came in, I started up zoom to see what it would do. There's an update available, where zoom says they're abandoning the local web server.

Upgraded, should be good for tomorrow.

Came here, noticed the "softwareupdate -i MRTConfigData_10_14-1.45 --include-config-data" command and ran it. Checked last update -- back in June, to 1.42 ...

Updated that, ready to go.

Business continues, maybe I'll delete zoom another day, but not just yet.

No wonder Apple took this step!

Many users are unable to enable Video feature even after applying recent patch released by Zoom. Also zoom has become security joke/conversation topic while starting a con calls!

It bothers me that I see an increasing number of apps that run a local web server. I've got half a dozen apps, mostly development tools like pgAdmin, that force me to run the app and then access the UI through a browser.

How many such apps am I running that I don't know about? And how many of them are exposing my system to malicious web sites, or to curious people in my office on the same subnet? I wish I knew.

This whole saga and how it played out is the final nudge I needed in my decision to move completely from Android/PC to Apple

Why do web browsers even allow access to localhost? Seems like developers just use this to abuse/violate user preferences anyway.

I think I'd be happy with a popup once-per-tab asking me for permission for a web page to talk to a local web server... Might even be okay if it's scary (Are you a developer?)

I appreciate Apple's handling of these issues, but is there a local log or something where you can see all such "secret" updates?

Edit: Apparently there is:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20409200

Does anyone know if issues like this would only affect the current user account?

I currently have a separate limited user account just for meetings, and that’s where I install various meeting apps. So in my case is there any way to know if Zoom or WebEx would install stuff on all accounts?

This is why I don’t trust apps outside the App Store as much.

If we can’t trust an app that is the cornerstone of a 25 billion dollar business (Zoom’s market cap) not to install malware, then I don’t know.

I want the trust through the App Store.

PS. I love Zoom, and find it to be the best conference solution out there.

I haven't been following this issue, but i am very wary of Zoom since they automatically turn your camera on and broadcast your stream as soon as you click a Zoom link in your web browser which seems like a major issue to me...

You can judge how a company functions internally by how they respond externally,

Zoom’s initial response to this incident was shameful. They basically said “that’s how are app works. F U”

I am moving away from Zoom.

Any suggestions? Preferably open source

Zoom should be investigated by the US government.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20408502

I'm so glad they're killing it too. Zoom did a horrible job handling this. (yes, I'm assuming the reported timeline is correct).

Please, Apple, give me a way to disconnect my microphone and webcam on an OS level so apps can't randomly access it.

Doesn’t that already exist under Preferences > Security & Privacy?

Afk rn so i might be misremembering the name of the setting.

TIL! Thanks! This is exactly what I wanted.

Wrt webcam I use a sliding webcam cover to block it on a hardware level.

Right, but when you try to report a busted macOS API to Apple that breaks your app, you have to walk on egg shells...

Now they should push an update to forbid Apps from doing that in the first place without asking the user at least.

How do these kinds of silent updates work?

This is an update to Apple's Malware Removal Tool (MRT) blacklist.

Zoom should just move to a webRTC based setup with no plugins or anything. Wouldn’t that make things easier?

Why wasn't Microsoft susceptible to this? Did the Microsoft Windows 10 firewall stop this?

What I'm more surprised about is how Apple can giveth and quickly take it away remotely.

Once again, a popular site that is completely GDPR non-complient. To opt out of tracking you have to go through six layers of obfuscation. And don't take the wrong turn, or you will just come to walls of text, meant to do nothing but make you throw up your hands and give up. Or you can just opt in to everything with one click.

looks good to me. Do more and more at that pace.

i love apple for these kind of things

Who cares?

I imagine Apple has known about this daemon for a long time from it's OS analytics.

What OS analytics?

Apple gathers various anonymous metrics, yes, but I don't think they collect information on arbitrary web servers running on Macs.

Crash reports include running processes.

What do you think the anonymous metrics are if the process list and open sockets are excluded?

Zoom? Thought they were talking about the zoom gesture in MacOS. I’ll move right along then ...

So they installed without further confirmation a silent update that removes a silent installer? No irony?

Not really, no. Apple's update is just a configuration change to XProtect, which is the anti-malware system. It's not an OS patch, it's just like any third-party malware system auto-updating signatures.

ertecheck found this for me maybe 2 months ago. coincidentally right in the disclosure window!

i tried etrecheck on a lark. at the time i found it unremarkable. oh, i have this leftover dingle here, thanks etrecheck, i'll just remove it then. but otherwise i wasn't screaming etrecheck from on high.

now i am!!

Everything about the etrecheck website screams "system optimizer scam!" and this comment does nothing but reinforce that feeling.

If you try EtreCheck, you’ll find that it has nothing in common with system optimization scams. EtreCheck has no (or very few) magic “fix it” buttons. It only finds issues that appear to be problematic and (optionally) gives the user instructions on how to fix those issues. EtreCheck is definitely an end-user tool. It is designed for people who don’t know what software they have installed. It will even provide people with anti-scam tips if it detects that they might have installed scam apps in the past. For other users, it could still be helpful in listing partially uninstalled software like what is being discussed with the Zoom issue.

The latest version of EtreCheckPro 6.0.2 has more features that might appeal to very tech-savvy users. It has a storage analysis feature to help find how your disk is being used since Apple’s own tools are notoriously bad at this. It also has a graphical view of the analytics data that macOS automatically collects. You won’t find this analytics display in any other tool.

it's a very simple tool, to be sure. but come on, it's not like it's steve gibson wares ...

the free version is perfectly adequate. it's simply an information gathering and reporting tool. anyone could write this tool themselves -- the mechanics of it are beyond simple. but like all sysadmin tasks, gathering the requirements is the hard part.

> Apple said the update does not require any user interaction and is deployed automatically.

I think this scares me just as much. #singlePointOfFailure #rootKit

This isn't an "update" in the traditional sense and you can turn this off from System Preferences.

My coworker owes me lunch, I said they would yank the Zoom app for breaking the app stores TOS (close enough hahaha). Apple cant be very happy with public companies breaking their platform, especially in the name of "UX", which is supposed to be (and is) their differentiator.

Except Zoom isn’t available via the Mac App Store, so there’s no ToS for them to have broken.

My Macbook pro froze this morning...the mouse moved, but I couldn't interact with anything. After a few mins, I hard rebooted it, and it worked fine after that. I'm not sure if it was related to this update, but it's the first time that this has ever happened, so it's a little bit of a coincidence.

I had the exact same symptom, also for the first time it'd ever happened.

This has been widespread for the last week and a half, but nobody knows why. Unrelated to zoom.

Looking at my logs, I see a gpu reset at the time the problem occurred:

Event: GPU Reset RCS Ring is: - busy - in the ring <-- Appears hung

I suspect the automated GPU reset didn't quite work, as nothing wasn't redrawing properly.

It's a coincidence.

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