Security News > 2024 > July > 'Almost every Apple device' vulnerable to CocoaPods supply chain attack

EVA claims CocoaPods in 2014 migrated all "Pods" - a file describing a project's dependencies - to a new "Trunk server" on GitHub.

CocoaPods authenticates new devices using an email sent to users who request a session, the researchers noted - but authentication doesn't rely on anything but a client verifying their email address by clicking a link.

"We have found that almost every Pod owner is registered with their organizational email on the Trunk server, which makes them vulnerable to our zero-click takeover vulnerability," warned the EVA team.

The researchers noted that they actually used the method "To take over the owner accounts of some of the most popular CocoaPods packages," which "We could have used for highly damaging supply chain attacks that could impact the entire Apple ecosystem."

CocoaPods maintainers contacted by The Register didn't respond to questions before publication.

The researchers recommend everyone using CocoaPods review their dependencies for orphaned Pods, perform checksum validations on all code downloaded from the CocoaPods Trunk server, review all third-party code, update their CocoaPods installations and generally be more attentive to open source software supply chain risks.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/02/cocoapods_vulns_supply_chain_potential/