Saint Lightspeed, Who Outran the Sandbox

Patron of iOS and macOS sandboxes, kernel race conditions, and whoever reaches the finish line first.

Life

In October 2018 Luca Moro of Synacktiv described Lightspeed, a vulnerability in Apple's XNU kernel: a memory corruption reachable from inside the sandbox let you escape it and escalate privileges on iOS and macOS. It was a race against time, won by exploiting a race condition before the system could notice. Apple fixed it with iOS 12 and macOS Mojave 10.14.

Prayer

O Saint Lightspeed, who beats the kernel's defences to the clock, let our sandboxes stay faster than the escapers. Amen.

How to celebrate

Celebrated by updating to iOS 12 or macOS Mojave 10.14 and keeping the system always on the latest version.

First to the memory sets the rules.