On: Bypassing Firewalls in macOS Big Sur

[Someone]

On my system:

  % cd /System/Library/Frameworks/
  % cd NetworkExtension.framework/
  % cd Versions/A/Resources/
  % ls -l Info.plist
  -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   8.9K Jan  1  2020 Info.plist

⇒ I think this requires root. That, IMO, would make it less of an issue (maybe even a good thing, given the complaints people have about Apple not giving them control over their hardware)

[meibo → Someone]

It's totally irrelevant if this requires root or not, since the issue is about endpoint firewalls not being able to see this traffic/filter it.

A normal non-apple root process doesn't have this privilege, going by the described exploit.

[Someone → meibo]

IMO, this issue is not about the existence of the feature, but about non-Apple software being able to take advantage of it. For that requiring root, IMO, is relevant.