macOS High Sierra’s App Store System Can be Unlocked by Any Password

New bug discovered in macOS High Sierra allows unlocking the App Store System Preferences by any password.

App Store System Preferences accept any password when system logged in with local admin Privilege.

This could be very dangerous if anyone already has your system permission and they can able to download any apps, modifying the apps store setting, also they can disable auto update for future macOS update.

This is another critical macOS High Sierra bug and an earlier bug with MacOS High Sierra was uncovered on Nov 28 which allows anyone can login local admin account with an empty password. This bug allows anyone to login to the local admin account with the username “root” and no password needed.

According to the researcher, apps store can be bypassed by following steps.

• Click on System Preferences.
• Click on App Store.
• Click on the padlock icon to lock it if necessary.
• Click on the padlock icon again.
• Enter your username and any password.
• Click Unlock.

This Flaw Doesn’t work in non-admin users and the same method has been tested in the Non-admin user’s account and no behavior changes in the local user account.

According to macrumors, It’s worth noting that the App Store preferences are unlocked by default on administrator accounts, and given the settings in this menu aren’t overly sensitive, this bug is not nearly as serious as the earlier root vulnerability.

Even though it’s not high Critical bug, but in terms of the security flaw and any password can be accepted is not something small flaw that presented in Apple Products.

Apple Released a Statment regarding this bug that says, We greatly regret this error and we apologize to all Mac users, both for releasing with this vulnerability and for the concern it has caused. Our customers deserve better. We are auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again.