I recently turned on the enhanced security options for my macOS app in Xcode 26.0.1 by adding the Enhanced Security capability in the Signing and Capabilities tab. Then, Xcode adds the following key-value sets (with some other key-values) to my app's entitlements file.
<key>com.apple.security.hardened-process.enhanced-security-version</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>com.apple.security.hardened-process.platform-restrictions</key>
<integer>2</integer>
These values appear following the documentation about the enhanced security feature (Enabling enhanced security for your app) and the app works without any issues.
However, when I submitted a new version to the Mac App Store, my submission was rejected, and I received the following message from the App Review team via the App Store Connect.
Guideline 2.4.5(i) - Performance
Your app incorrectly implements sandboxing, or it contains one or more entitlements with invalid values. Please review the included entitlements and sandboxing documentation and resolve this issue before resubmitting a new binary.
Entitlement "com.apple.security.hardened-process.enhanced-security-version" value must be boolean and true.
Entitlement "com.apple.security.hardened-process.platform-restrictions" value must be boolean and true.
When I changed those values directly in the entitlements file based on this message, the app appears to still work. However, these settings are against the description in the documentation I mentioned above and against the settings Xcode inserted after changing the GUI setting view.
So, my question is, which settings are actually correct to enable the Enhanced Security and the Additional Runtime Platform Restrictions?
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Since October 3rd, I've stopped receiving responses to the Private Access Tokens challenge.
I'm using this link: https://demo-issuer.private-access-tokens.fastly.com/.well-known/token-issuer-directory. I receive tokens from Fastly and return a header to the iOS app, but then I don't receive another authentication request from iOS.
The user has automatic verification enabled on their phone. The problem is global and affects all my mobile app users.
Has anyone encountered a similar problem and found a solution?
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Hello,
Thanks for the new video on Memory Integrity Enforcement!
Is the presented app's sample code available (so that we can play with it and find & fix the bug on our own, using Soft Mode)?
Thanks in advance!
Hello everyone,
We recently transferred our iOS app from one Apple Developer account to another, and after the transfer, we encountered a serious issue where all previously stored Keychain data and the local database became inaccessible.
As a result, all users are automatically logged out and lose access to their locally stored data (such as chat history) once they update to the new version signed with the new Team ID.
We understand that Keychain items are tied to the App ID prefix (Team ID), which changes during an app transfer. However, we’re looking for possible workarounds or best practices to avoid user data loss.
Questions:
Is there any reliable method to maintain or migrate access to old Keychain data after an app transfer?
Would reverting the app back to the original developer account and releasing an update from there (to persist or migrate data) before transferring it again be a viable solution?
Has anyone faced a similar issue and found a practical way to handle data persistence during an app transfer?
Any guidance, technical suggestions, or shared experiences would be highly appreciated. This issue is causing major impact for our users, so we’re hoping to find a safe and supported approach.
Thank you,
Mohammed Hassan
I'm trying to setup device attestation. I believe I have everything setup correctly but the final step of signature validation never succeeds. I've added validation on the client side for debugging and it doesn't validate using CryptoKit.
After the assertion is created, I try to validate it:
assertion = try await DCAppAttestService.shared.generateAssertion(keyId, clientDataHash: clientDataHash)
await validateAssertionLocallyForDebugging(keyId: keyId, assertionObject: assertion, clientDataHash: clientDataHash)
In the validateAssertionLocallyForDebugging method, I extract all the data from the CBOR assertionObject and then setup the parameters to validate the signature, using the key that was created from the original attestation flow, but it fails every time. I'm getting the public key from the server using a temporary debugging API.
let publicKeyData = Data(base64Encoded: publicKeyB64)!
let p256PublicKey = try P256.Signing.PublicKey(derRepresentation: publicKeyData)
let ecdsaSignature = try P256.Signing.ECDSASignature(derRepresentation: signature)
let digestToVerify = SHA256.hash(data: authenticatorData + clientDataHash)
print(" - Recreated Digest to Verify: \(Data(digestToVerify).hexDescription)")
if p256PublicKey.isValidSignature(ecdsaSignature, for: digestToVerify) {
print("[DEBUG] SUCCESS: Local signature validation passed!")
} else {
print("[DEBUG] FAILED: Local signature validation failed.")
}
I have checked my .entitlements file and it is set to development. I have checked the keyId and verified the public key. I have verified the public key X,Y, the RP ID Hash, COSE data, and pretty much anything else I could think of. I've also tried using Gemini and Claude to debug this and that just sends me in circles of trying hashed, unhashed, and double hashed clientData. I'm doing this from Xcode on an M3 macbook air to an iPhone 16 Pro Max. Do you have any ideas on why the signature is not validating with everything else appears to be working?
Thanks
I've come across strange behavior with the userID property on the returned credential from a passkey attestation.
When performing a cross-device passkey assertion between iOS and Android by scanning the generated QR code on my iPhone with an Android device the returned credential object contains an empty userID.
This does not happen when performing an on device or cross-device assertion using two iPhones.
Is this expected behavior, or is there something I'm missing here? I couldn't find any more information on this in the documentation.
iOS Version: 26.0.1, Android Version: 13
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Authentication Services
I have a project with a single app target that serves two environments, and two schemes, one for each env, using xcconfig files for defining environment-specific stuff.
I'm trying to figure this out for months, so I've tried multiple approaches throughout this period:
Have a single domain in "Associated domains" in Xcode, defined as webcredentials:X where X gets replaced using a value from xcconfig.
Have two domain entries in "Associated domains" webcredentials:PROD_DOMAIN and webcredentials:STAGING_DOMAIN.
Have a different order of domains
Results are very interesting: whatever I do, whatever approach I take, password autofill works on staging, but doesn't work on production. I'm aware that we need to test production on Test Flight and AppStore builds. That's how we're testing it, and it's not working. Tested on multiple devices, on multiple networks (wifi + mobile data), in multiple countries.. you name it.
The server side team has checked their implementation a dozen times; it's all configured properly, in the exact same way across environments (except bundle ID, ofc).
We tried a couple websites for validating the apple-app-site-association file, and while all of those are focused on testing universal links, they all reported that the file is configured properly. Still, password autofill doesn't work.
I prefer not to share my app's domains publicly here. Ideally I would contact Apple Developer Support directly, but they now require a test project for that, and since 'a test project' is not applicable to my issue, I'm posting here instead.
The header documentation for the (deprecated) LAContext.evaluatedPolicyDomainState property contains the following:
@warning Please note that the value returned by this property can change exceptionally between major OS versions even if the state of biometry has not changed.
I noticed that the documentation for the new LAContext.domainState property does not contain a similar warning. I also found this related thread from 2016/17.
Is the domainState property not susceptible to changes between major OS versions? Or is this generally not an issue anymore?
Hi Apple team,
For our iPhone app (App Store build), a small subset of devices report DCAppAttestService.isSupported == false, preventing App Attest from being enabled.
Approx. impact: 0.23% (352/153,791)
iOS observed: Broadly 15.x–18.7 (also saw a few anomalous entries ios/26.0, likely client logging noise)
Device models: Multiple generations (iPhone8–iPhone17); a few iPad7 entries present although the app targets iPhone
Questions
In iPhone main app context, what conditions can make isSupported return false on iOS 14+?
Are there known device/iOS cases where temporary false can occur (SEP/TrustChain related)? Any recommended remediation (e.g., DFU restore)?
Could you share logging guidance (Console.app subsystem/keywords) to investigate such cases?
What fallback policy do you recommend when isSupported == false (e.g., SE-backed signature + DeviceCheck + risk rules), and any limitations?
We can provide sysdiagnose/Console logs and more case details upon request.
Thank you,
—
Hello,
I’m storing some values in the Keychain with the attribute ‘ksecattraccessibleafterfirstunlockthisdeviceonly’ (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/ksecattraccessibleafterfirstunlockthisdeviceonly).
When I migrate user data between iPhones via iCloud, this behaves as expected and the keys are not preserved.
However, when I migrate using a direct connection between two devices, the keys are preserved, which seems to contradict the attribute’s intent.
Is this a known behavior, and if so, is there a workaround?
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
For testing purposes we have code that calls SecTrustEvaluateAsyncWithError() with a trust object containing a hardcoded leaf certificate and the corresponding intermediate certificate required to form a valid chain. Because the leaf certificate has since expired we pass a date in the past via SecTrustSetVerifyDate() at wich the certificate was still valid, but trust evaluation fails:
Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-67825 "“<redacted>” certificate is not standards compliant" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=“<redacted>” certificate is not standards compliant, NSUnderlyingError=0x600000c282a0 {Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-67825 "Certificate 0 “<redacted>” has errors: Certificate Transparency validation required for this use;" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Certificate 0 “<redacted>” has errors: Certificate Transparency validation required for this use;}}}
I know that App Transport Security enforces Certificate Transparency by default, but is there a way around that here?
Hello,
We received a rejection on one of our IOS applications because we were doing Microsoft MSAL login through the user's browser. The representative recommended that we use Webview to do in-app logins. However when we tried to handle the custom app uri redirection (looking like myapp://auth/), Webview does not seem to send the user back to the application. Does anyone have a fix for this?
Thanks!
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Safari and Web
UI Frameworks
Authentication Services
WebKit
Hi Team,
We are trying to understand deep sleep behaviour, can you please help us clarifying on the below questions:
When will we configure Hibernate 25, is it valid for M series MacBooks?
Is Hibernate 25 called deep sleep mode?
What are the settings I need to do on Mac, to make my Mac go in to deep sleep?
When awakening from deep sleep , what would be macOS system behaviour?
If we have custom SFAuthorization plug in at system.login.screensaver, what would be the behaviour with deep sleep?
Hi all, I've on high alert after hearing about the security concerns with npm. Full disclosure, I'm new to computer and network architecture, however, as someone who is on high alert for aplications exfiltrating data or poisioning my on-device machine learning models — I've seen some things I can't fully explain and I'm hoping the community can help.
I ran the code odutil show all and I was wondering why certain node names are hidden in my system and when I use the directory utility, I can't use my computer login and password to authenticate to see the users? Am I being locked out of seeing my own system? I'm trying to dig to see if a root kit was installed on my device.
Does anyone know what the users and groups in the directory utility are? Who is "nobody" and who is "Unknown user"? I'll probably have a lot more questions about this suspicious files I've seen on my device. Does anyone else's device download machine learning model payloads from the internet without notifying the user (even through a firewall, no startup applications?). I've also tried deleting applications I no longer need anymore and my "system" makes them re-appear.... what?
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
My application is supporting hybrid transport on FIDO2 webAuthn specs to create credential and assertion. And it support legacy passkeys which only mean to save to 1 device and not eligible to backup.
However In my case, if i set the Backup Eligibility and Backup State flag to false, it fails on the completion of the registrationRequest to save the passkey credential within credential extension, the status is false instead of true.
self.extension.completeRegistrationRequest(using: passkeyRegistrationCredential)
The attestation and assertion flow only works when both flags set to true.
Can advice why its must have to set both to true in this case?
Hi,
A user logs in to the file vault, and DisableFDEAutoLogin is false. The file vault login succeeds, but the login to the selected user fails. The user gets the login screen again. If the user puts an invalid password to try and login again, the loginwindow:FDESupport plugin will change the user's password to the invalid one.
Hi,
I have a set of plugins which are registered for login.
One of them is a custom ui view for the login screen.
The scenario:
1.DisableFDEAutoLogin is false.
2.The User logs in to the file vault login screen.
3.The security plugins are activated, and working.
4.We get any kind of an error from the plugins, and therefore the login fails.
5.We get a native login screen, after the denial of authorization.
6.In case that DisableFDEAutoLogin is true, I do get the custom login screen, after the file vault login.
My question:
Why dont I see the custom login screen, after the auto login fails?
Cheers
Sivan
Hi ,
I have a requirement like,
Develop an app for iPad and app uses .net core apis.
App will be in kiosk mode, and app doesn't have any type of authentication even OTP also.
As the apis will be publishing to all over internet, how can we achieve security to apis?
Kindly provide suggestions for this implementation
I keep getting the following error when trying to run Passkey sign in on macOS.
Told not to present authorization sheet: Error Domain=com.apple.AuthenticationServicesCore.AuthorizationError Code=1 "(null)"
ASAuthorizationController credential request failed with error: Error Domain=com.apple.AuthenticationServices.AuthorizationError Code=1004 "(null)"
This is the specific error.
Application with identifier a is not associated with domain b
I have config the apple-app-site-association link and use ?mode=developer
Could there be any reason for this?
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
macOS
Objective-C
Authentication Services
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Hello everyone.
Hope this one finds you well)
I have an issue with integrating a FIDO2 server with ASAuthorizationController.
I have managed to register a user with passkey successfully, however when authenticating, the request for authentication response fails. The server can't validate signature field.
I can see 2 possible causes for the issue: ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialAssertion.rawAuthenticatorData contains invalid algorithm information (the server tries ES256, which ultimately fails with false response), or I have messed up Base64URL encoding for the signature property (which is unlikely, since all other fields also require Base64URL, and the server consumes them with no issues).
So the question is, what encryption algorithm does ASAuthorizationController use? Maybe someone has other ideas regarding where to look into?
Please help. Thanks)