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What if I say, your Email ID is all I need to takeover your account on your favorite website or an app. Sounds scary, right? This is what a bug in Sign in with Apple allowed me to do.
When Apple announced Sign in with Apple at the June 2019 worldwide developers conference, it called it a "more private way to simply and quickly sign into apps and websites." The idea was, and still is, a good one: replace social logins that can be used to collect personal data with a secure authentication system backed by Apple's promise not to profile users or their app activity.
One of the plus points that got a lot of attention at the time was the ability for a user to sign up with third-party apps and services without needing to disclose their Apple ID email address. Unsurprisingly, it has been pushed as being a more privacy-oriented option than using your Facebook or Google account.
Fast forward to April 2020, and a security researcher from Delhi uncovered a critical Sign in with Apple vulnerability that could allow an attacker to potentially take over an account with just an email ID. A critical vulnerability that was deemed important enough that Apple paid him $100,000 (£81,000) through its bug bounty program by way of a reward.
Considering the level of embarrassment possible for basically leaving the front door unlocked, I'd say the reward was on the light side.
I found I could request JWTs for any Email ID from Apple and when the signature of these tokens was verified using Apple's public key, they showed as valid. This means an attacker could forge a JWT by linking any Email ID to it and gaining access to the victim's account.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday June 01 2020, @02:49PM
The real problem is, they can promise all they want, there's so much money to be made in the dataraping business that they won't resist the lure for very long, even if they honestly try to. Giant tech companies promising not to abuse your personal data is exactly like a heroin addict promising to stay off the needle: sure it's possible they'll keep their promise, but most likely they won't, and in any case you can never trust them.