On macOS, certain system components are intended to be protected even if you have administrator/root access to the machine. The intent is that a rogue daemon running as root shouldn't be able to e.g. delete OS files or inject itself into the permissions database ("give me ALL THE PERMISSIONS") without your consent. This protection system is called SIP, or "System Integrity Protection". The bug in the blog post bypasses this protection and demos it by overwriting one of these protected files that is not usually modifiable by root.
saagarjha|3 years ago
Mandatum|3 years ago
pxc|3 years ago
Why would daemons be running as root in 2022? What does that anymore, especially on macOS?
ta988|3 years ago
josephcsible|3 years ago