CVE-2015-3764 in Mac OS X
Summary
by MITRE
Notification Center in Apple OS X before 10.10.5 does not properly remove dismissed notifications, which allows attackers to read arbitrary notifications via a crafted app.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/02/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2015-3764 resides within Apple's Notification Center implementation in macOS versions prior to 10.10.5, representing a significant privacy and security flaw that undermines the fundamental integrity of the operating system's notification management system. This weakness specifically targets the notification dismissal mechanism, where dismissed notifications are not properly cleared from memory or storage, creating a persistent data exposure risk that can be exploited by malicious applications.
The technical flaw manifests in the improper handling of notification lifecycle management within the Notification Center framework. When users dismiss notifications through standard interaction methods, the system fails to completely purge notification data from memory or storage locations, leaving residual notification content accessible to other applications. This occurs due to inadequate memory management and access control mechanisms that do not properly enforce the principle of least privilege for notification data access. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-200, which deals with exposure of sensitive information, and specifically relates to improper handling of notification state transitions that should have been secured through proper access controls and memory management protocols.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privacy concerns to encompass potential information disclosure and data compromise scenarios. Attackers can craft malicious applications that repeatedly query the notification system, accessing previously dismissed notifications that contain sensitive information such as messages, emails, calendar entries, or other personal data that users believed had been securely removed. This creates a persistent surveillance capability that undermines user trust in the operating system's privacy protections and can lead to unauthorized access to confidential information across multiple notification types. The vulnerability operates at the system level, allowing attackers to bypass typical application sandboxing restrictions through legitimate notification system access points.
Security professionals should note that this vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1056.001 for input injection and T1070.004 for indicator removal, as it enables persistent access to notification data while potentially allowing for data exfiltration through the notification system's legitimate interfaces. The exploitation requires minimal privileges and can be achieved through standard application installation processes, making it particularly dangerous as it can be deployed through seemingly legitimate software channels. Organizations should implement immediate mitigation strategies including mandatory system updates to macOS 10.10.5 or later, along with monitoring for suspicious notification-related application behavior, though the fundamental fix requires system-level patches that address the core notification management implementation flaws.
This vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of proper state management in operating system components and highlights how seemingly minor implementation flaws in system services can create significant security risks. The issue represents a failure in the security architecture's defense-in-depth principles, where multiple layers of protection should have prevented unauthorized access to notification data. The persistence of dismissed notifications creates an attack surface that extends beyond the immediate notification system into broader data access patterns, making it particularly challenging to detect and mitigate through traditional security monitoring approaches.