Vulnerability giving attackers full control of Macs is under active exploitation

Dutch officials have warned that a high-severity macOS vulnerability that allows attackers to execute malicious code is under active exploitation. “The NCSC has received a notification indicating that active abuse of this vulnerability has been observed on multiple systems on which port 5900 was accessible from the Internet,” the Netherlands National Cyber Security Centrum warned earlier this week.

The vulnerability, with a severity rating of 7. 1 out of 10, stems from a bug in the macOS screen sharing capability, which allows a remote party to view the screen and control the keyboard and mouse while a machine is turned on.

A flaw in the “state management,” which keeps track of preceding events, user interactions, variables, and other system states, is the underlying cause.