CNBC's MacKenzie Sigalos reports on Apple's rapid patching of multiple Mac security flaws, where AI tools from OpenAI and Anthropic let researchers reverse-engineer a fix and build an exploit in just four hours. Apple confirms no known in-the-wild attacks and is using AI on defense to triage bug reports while limiting researcher submissions to manage the growing volume.
- Apple rushed out an emergency security patch for a Mac screen-sharing vulnerability that could allow remote access without a password.
- A research team used OpenAI and Anthropic models to reverse-engineer the fix and create a working exploit in four hours.
- A prior scan found about 40,000 Macs with screen sharing reachable from the internet, though Apple says users must manually enable it.
- Apple is employing AI to sort real security flaws from lower-quality AI-generated submissions and limiting the number of open reports per researcher.
- The cadence of fixes has accelerated from weeks to hours, with patches sometimes arriving ahead of normal OS update cycles.
- The story highlights the growing cat-and-mouse dynamic in cybersecurity as AI speeds up both attacks and defenses.