The co-founder of the fourth-largest altcoin project Solana (SOL), Anatoly Yakovenko, recently expressed his concerns about a security vulnerability in Apple’s M series chips that poses a significant threat to crypto security on Mac devices.
Yakovenko: I Hate This
In a post from his personal X account, Yakovenko drew attention to a security flaw that allows attackers to extract private wallet keys from Mac computers during cryptographic transactions, expressing his displeasure by saying, “I hate this.”
The security vulnerability in Apple’s M series chips highlighted by the co-founder of Solana has caused alarm in the cryptocurrency world, as it potentially exposes the burgeoning crypto industry to security threats.
The Security Flaw Carries a Major Risk for Crypto
Tech giant Apple made a significant move by introducing its M series chips at the end of 2020, strengthening its position in the industry. However, a critical security flaw recently identified in these chips poses a significant risk in terms of consumer trust and safety. The flaw, related to the design of the chip’s silicon, cannot be easily fixed and requires complex solutions from third-party cryptographic software to mitigate the security vulnerability.
Moreover, a team of cybersecurity and technology experts has discovered that the security flaw allows malicious actors to extract encryption keys directly from the chip itself. While the integration of third-party applications can provide some level of defense against the vulnerability, this situation could significantly affect the performance of previous generation M series chips like the M1 and M2, and pose a threat to Apple’s brand value.
The security flaw becomes exploitable when both the targeted cryptographic operation and the malicious application run on the same CPU cluster with standard user privileges. This gap poses a serious risk to the security and integrity of crypto-related operations on Mac devices and has the potential to shake consumer confidence in Apple’s products, sounding a serious alarm.
