Are there any partial mitigations you can take until these are patched?
An exploit wishing to exploit these vulnerabilities has to be coded to make these calls. Most apps don’t dynamically construct arbitrary API calls. In fact, you can’t do that in Swift AFAIK. You have to drop to Objective-C or C to do that.
So most apps need to be updated to exploit the vulnerability. The only exceptions would be apps that are intentionally constructed to call arbitrary APIs or at least with arbitrary parameters. The first would be a violation of developer agreements but that hasn’t stopped people in the past. Also, these aren’t even private APIs. These are public APIs that got exploited due to not properly checking parameters/entitlements.
I wonder if Apple isn’t running static analysis tools right now to look for these vulnerabilities against all apps.
On a side note, this is one more reason Apple can cite for their App Store exclusivity. If there is a vulnerability in the OS exploitable by apps, and they can’t get a patch out in time, they can screen and prevent the download of such dangerous apps.
Not a popular position here I know. But I’m correct no?
There probably hasn't been hardening of it in years and the initial work was probably developed in haste.
This is systemic. Apple has a bad habit of abandoning software that isn't a priority. So, one shouldn't be surprised that Apple hasn't fixed these exploits. And I wonder if the author has fully mined GameKit for exploits yet. Perhaps there are more to be found.
The architecture of iOS and OSX isn't conducive to security AFAIK. It is more of an add-on as one can see instead of being architected in.
You're not correct - Apple can still scan apps installed from elsewhere. With a user opt-in, Android can verify side-loaded apps - no App-store exclusivity required.
In fact, the prof of concepts shown in the article are all written in Swift.
This is truly a massive fail on the part of Apple and I hope there is as big of a backlash from their users.