Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that security experts successfully discovered a privilege escalation vulnerability in Apple's macOS 26.4.1 system by using Anthropic's most powerful AI model, Claude Mythos. This technological innovation has brought new insights to the field of information security, especially in operating system security protection.

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Researchers from the security company Calif participated in this penetration test, starting from a regular local account. By analyzing and applying two system vulnerabilities, they ultimately obtained the highest system authority —— root shell. This level of access allows attackers to directly execute high-privilege commands, modify system configurations at will, access restricted directories, and even implant backdoors for continued control.

This attack successfully bypassed the Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) protection mechanism implemented by Apple for its new generation Apple Silicon devices. MIE is a hardware-level defense deployed by Apple to enhance security, aiming to limit potential attack methods in memory and reduce the likelihood of exploiting vulnerabilities.

The research team emphasized that this attack did not rely solely on a single vulnerability, but rather combined various techniques and known types of vulnerabilities, using the assistance of the Claude Mythos model to accelerate the research process. After discovering the issue in mid-April, the team spent about five days to successfully build this privilege escalation chain. During this process, the collaboration between researchers and AI significantly improved the efficiency and accuracy of the research.

Although the vulnerability was discovered, the research team stated that due to Apple still reviewing the relevant issues, they have not yet released specific vulnerability numbers, exploit code, or the complete technical report. They hope that by promptly notifying Apple, the manufacturer can quickly fix the vulnerability and protect user safety.

Key Points:   

🔍 Experts successfully discovered an Apple macOS privilege escalation vulnerability using an AI model.   

🔒 Attackers gained the highest system authority through two vulnerabilities, bypassing MIE protection.   

🤖 Collaboration between AI and human researchers significantly improved the efficiency of vulnerability identification and exploitation.