Hackers typically have a bad reputation, but without them, many security issues would remain undetected. This was proven by Ryan Pickren, a cybersecurity Ph.D. student at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The hacker described the hacking process in a lengthy blog post, going into detail as to how he was able to achieve the end result. The bugs revolve around exploiting issues with iCloud Sharing and the Safari 15 browser. Although the issue may seem situational and unlikely to be replicated, all it takes is one vulnerability for a hacker to gain control of a person’s device.
As the file is stored on the cloud and not locally, it can be swapped at any time after permission is granted. This can result in a simple image or text file being turned into an executable file with malicious code. Pickren used this exploit to change file types and gain full access to the user’s Mac.
The file, once accessed via ShareBear, can be remotely launched at any moment without further prompt. As Pickren explains, this certainly opens the door to a potentially very dangerous hack, granting full access to the Mac in question.