Michael TsaiVerified account

@rosyna Where is that code running? And why wouldn’t it also be able to make the app ask the user which files to destroy, as you say?

@mjtsai the malicious code runs inside the legitimate app. That's how all flash exploits work. A user would notice an unusual dialog.

@rosyna So you’re saying that the reason the Mac App Store requires sandboxing is to protect against Flash, which most apps don’t use?

@mjtsai No, it's to prevent bugs in the apps from being exploited and doing harm to other parts of the system.

@rosyna But, aside from your example of Flash, where is the code that’s exploiting these bugs?

@mjtsai The bugs are in the apps. The malicious code is delivered multiple ways. Wikipedia has an article on RCE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary_code_execution …

@rosyna @mjtsai Or touch that file or whatever. But notice that Spotify isn't malicious, in the example it's hijacked and becomes malicious

@drewthaler @mjtsai That actually happened to Twitter for Mac OS X a few years ago due to an image parsing bug.