{"id":51937,"date":"2026-05-18T13:50:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=51937"},"modified":"2026-05-18T13:50:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:50:33","slug":"memory-integrity-enforcement-exploit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/18\/memory-integrity-enforcement-exploit\/","title":{"rendered":"Memory Integrity Enforcement Exploit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.calif.io\/p\/first-public-kernel-memory-corruption\">Khanh<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/blog.calif.io\/p\/first-public-kernel-memory-corruption\">\n<p>Early this week, we had a meeting at Apple Park in Cupertino. While there, we also shared with Apple our latest vulnerability research report: the first public macOS kernel memory corruption exploit on M5 silicon, surviving <a href=\"https:\/\/security.apple.com\/blog\/memory-integrity-enforcement\/\">MIE<\/a>. It was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-independent.com\/tech\/iphone-apple-security-software-lockdown-mode-b2450192.html\">laser<\/a> printed, in honor of our hacker friends.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The exploit is a data-only kernel local privilege escalation chain targeting macOS 26.4.1 (25E253). It starts from an unprivileged local user, uses only normal system calls, and ends with a root shell. The implementation path involves two vulnerabilities and several techniques, targeting bare-metal M5 hardware with kernel MIE enabled.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>We didn&rsquo;t build the chain alone. Mythos Preview helped identify the bugs and assisted throughout exploit development.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/18\/hardening-firefox-with-mythos\/\">Hardening Firefox With Mythos<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/27\/curl-removes-bug-bounties\/\">curl Removes Bug Bounties<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/10\/mythos-and-glasswing\/\">Mythos and Glasswing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/11\/memory-integrity-enforcement\/\">Memory Integrity Enforcement<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Khanh: Early this week, we had a meeting at Apple Park in Cupertino. While there, we also shared with Apple our latest vulnerability research report: the first public macOS kernel memory corruption exploit on M5 silicon, surviving MIE. It was laser printed, in honor of our hacker friends. [&#8230;] The exploit is a data-only kernel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-05-18T17:50:37Z","apple_news_api_id":"08e826a3-b781-4e42-aca2-0ccd10d0c838","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-05-18T17:50:37Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ACOgmo7eBTkKsogzNENDIOA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2851,1351,131,2682,2095,845,30,2742,2915,48],"class_list":["post-51937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple-m5","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bug","tag-claude","tag-exploit","tag-kernel","tag-mac","tag-macos-tahoe-26","tag-mythos","tag-security"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51938,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51937\/revisions\/51938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}