In the hopes of saving others time, the updated demo project (i.e. the new Shiny) can be found from the video 'Resources' section under 'Performing fast account creation with passkeys'. The beta documentation can also be found from there.
All of the new functionality is available only on *OS 26 at this time.
General
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My high-level goal is to add support for Game Mode in a Java game, which launches via a macOS "launcher" app that runs the actual java game as a separate process (e.g. using the java command line tool).
I asked this over in the Graphics & Games section and was told this, which is why I'm reposting this here.
I'm uncertain how to speak to CLI tools and Java games launched from a macOS app. These sound like security and sandboxing questions which we recommend you ask about in those sections of the forums.
The system seems to decide whether to enable Game Mode based on values in the Info.plist (e.g. for LSApplicationCategoryType and GCSupportsGameMode). However, the child process can't seem to see these values. Is there a way to change that?
(The rest of this post is copied from my other forums post to provide additional context.)
Imagine a native macOS app that acts as a "launcher" for a Java game.** For example, the "launcher" app might use the Swift Process API or a similar method to run the java command line tool (lets assume the user has installed Java themselves) to run the game.
I have seen How to Enable Game Mode. If the native launcher app's Info.plist has the following keys set:
LSApplicationCategoryType set to public.app-category.games
LSSupportsGameMode set to true (for macOS 26+)
GCSupportsGameMode set to true
The launcher itself can cause Game Mode to activate if the launcher is fullscreened. However, if the launcher opens a Java process that opens a window, then the Java window is fullscreened, Game Mode doesn't seem to activate. In this case activating Game Mode for the launcher itself is unnecessary, but you'd expect Game Mode to activate when the actual game in the Java window is fullscreened.
Is there a way to get Game Mode to activate in the latter case?
** The concrete case I'm thinking of is a third-party Minecraft Java Edition launcher, but the issue can also be demonstrated in a sample project (FB13786152). It seems like the official Minecraft launcher is able to do this, though it's not clear how. (Is its bundle identifier hardcoded in the OS to allow for this? Changing a sample app's bundle identifier to be the same as the official Minecraft launcher gets the behavior I want, but obviously this is not a practical solution.)
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Games
Inter-process communication
macOS
Performance
Hi,
I am creating a custom login window, so I am using SFAuthorizationpluginView, here I want to hide Submit Arrow botton which gets displayed beside username and password text feild
, is there a way to hide this, please suggest.
I need to open p12 file from other iOS applications to import private key to my application. My app is set up to be able to open nay file with following plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>CFBundleDocumentTypes</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>CFBundleTypeName</key>
<string>Files</string>
<key>LSHandlerRank</key>
<string>Default</string>
<key>LSItemContentTypes</key>
<array>
<string>public.item</string>
<string>public.data</string>
<string>public.content</string>
</array>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>
But my don't appear in share dialog from Files or Mail app for example. There are however other third party apps that can accept this file. Some of them use Share extension which I don't have, but some of them don't have it as far as I can understand. At least they don't present any UI and open apps directly.
Also I've tried to specify com.rsa.pkcs-12 UTI directly but it didn't help. Also noticed that *.crt files have similar behaviour.
Am I missing something about this specific file type?
Our desktop app for macos will be released in 2 channels
appstore
dmg package on our official website for users to download and install
Now when we debug with passkey, we find that the package name of the appstore can normally arouse passkey, but the package name of the non-App Store can not arouse the passkey interface
I need your help. Thank you
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Bundle ID
macOS
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Authentication Services
Hi,
We're encountering an intermittent issue where certain users are unexpectedly logged out of our app and unable to log in again.
We believe we've narrrowed down the issue to the Keychain due to the following reasons:
We use a keychain item to determine if the member is logged in or not. Failure to retrieve the value leads the app to believe the member is logged out.
API error logs on the server show 3 missing values in fields that are each populated from items stored in the keychain.
Additional Notes:
The issue is hard to reproduce and seems to affect only a subset of users.
In some cases, uninstalling and reinstalling the app temporarily resolves the problem, but the issue recurs after a period of time.
The behavior appears to have coincided with the release of iOS 18.
We’re using the “kSecAttrAccessibleWhenUnlocked” accessibility attribute. Given that our app doesn’t perform background operations, we wouldn’t expect this to be an issue. We’re also considering changing this to "kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlockThisDeviceOnly" to see if this might resolve the issue.
We're the keychain-swift library to interact with the keychain.
We are currently adding extensive logging around our keychain implementation to confirm our findings but are looking for any additional input.
Questions:
Has anyone encountered similar keychain behavior on iOS 18?
Are there known changes or stability issues with the keychain in iOS 18 that might lead to such intermittent “item not found” errors?
Any recommended workarounds or troubleshooting steps that could help isolate the problem further?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Hi,
When calling generateAssertion on DCAppAttestService.shared, it gives invalidKey error when there was an update for an offloaded app.
The offloading and reinstall always works fine if it is the same version on app store that was offloaded from device,
but if there is an update and the app tries to reuse the keyID from previous installation for generateAssertion, attestation service rejects the key with error code 3 (invalid key) for a significant portion of our user.
In our internal testing it failed for more than a third of the update attempts.
STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
install v1 from app store
generate key using DCAppAttestService.shared.generateKey
Attest this key using DCAppAttestService.shared.attestKey
Send the attestation objection to our server and verify with apple servers
Generate assertions for network calls to backend using DCAppAttestService.shared.generateAssertion with keyID from step 2
Device offloads the app (manually triggered by user, or automatically by iOS)
A new version v2 is published to App Store
Use tries to open the app
Latest version is download from the App Store
App tries to use the keyID from step 2 to generate assertions
DCAppAttestService throws invalidKey error (Error Domain=com.apple.devicecheck.error Code=3)
Step 7 is critical here, if there is no new version of the app, the reinstalled v1 can reuse the key from step 2 without any issues
Is this behaviour expected?
Is there any way we can make sure the key is preserved between offloaded app updates?
Thanks
I have developed a sample app following the example found Updating your app package installer to use the new Service Management API and referring this discussion on XPC Security.
The app is working fine, I have used Swift NSXPCConnection in favour of xpc_connection_create_mach_service used in the example. (I am running app directly from Xcode)
I am trying to set up security requirements for the client connection using setCodeSigningRequirement on the connection instance.
But it fails for even basic requirement connection.setCodeSigningRequirement("anchor apple").
Error is as follows.
cannot open file at line 46986 of [554764a6e7]
os_unix.c:46986: (0) open(/private/var/db/DetachedSignatures) - Undefined error: 0
xpc_support_check_token: anchor apple error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-67050 "(null)" status: -67050
I have used codesign -d --verbose=4 /path/to/executable to check the attributes I do get them in the terminal.
Other way round, I have tried XPC service provider sending back process id (pid) with each request, and I am probing this id to get attributes using this code which gives all the details.
func inspectCodeSignature(ofPIDString pidString: String) {
guard let pid = pid_t(pidString) else {
print("Invalid PID string: \(pidString)")
return
}
let attributes = [kSecGuestAttributePid: pid] as CFDictionary
var codeRef: SecCode?
let status = SecCodeCopyGuestWithAttributes(nil, attributes, [], &codeRef)
guard status == errSecSuccess, let code = codeRef else {
print("Failed to get SecCode for PID \(pid) (status: \(status))")
return
}
var staticCode: SecStaticCode?
let staticStatus = SecCodeCopyStaticCode(code, [], &staticCode)
guard staticStatus == errSecSuccess, let staticCodeRef = staticCode else {
print("Failed to get SecStaticCode (status: \(staticStatus))")
return
}
var infoDict: CFDictionary?
if SecCodeCopySigningInformation(staticCodeRef, SecCSFlags(rawValue: kSecCSSigningInformation), &infoDict) == errSecSuccess,
let info = infoDict as? [String: Any] {
print("🔍 Code Signing Info for PID \(pid):")
print("• Identifier: \(info["identifier"] ?? "N/A")")
print("• Team ID: \(info["teamid"] ?? "N/A")")
if let entitlements = info["entitlements-dict"] as? [String: Any] {
print("• Entitlements:")
for (key, value) in entitlements {
print(" - \(key): \(value)")
}
}
} else {
print("Failed to retrieve signing information.")
}
var requirement: SecRequirement?
if SecRequirementCreateWithString("anchor apple" as CFString, [], &requirement) == errSecSuccess,
let req = requirement {
let result = SecStaticCodeCheckValidity(staticCodeRef, [], req)
if result == errSecSuccess {
print("Signature is trusted (anchor apple)")
} else {
print("Signature is NOT trusted by Apple (failed anchor check)")
}
}
var infoDict1: CFDictionary?
let signingStatus = SecCodeCopySigningInformation(staticCodeRef, SecCSFlags(rawValue: kSecCSSigningInformation), &infoDict1)
guard signingStatus == errSecSuccess, let info = infoDict1 as? [String: Any] else {
print("Failed to retrieve signing information.")
return
}
print("🔍 Signing Info for PID \(pid):")
for (key, value) in info.sorted(by: { $0.key < $1.key }) {
print("• \(key): \(value)")
}
}
If connection.setCodeSigningRequirement does not works I plan to use above logic as backup.
Q: Please advise is there some setting required to be enabled or I have to sign code with some flags enabled.
Note: My app is not running in a Sandbox or Hardened Runtime, which I want.
I have been trying to find a way to be able to sign some data with private key of an identity in login keychain without raising any prompts.
I am able to do this with system keychain (obviously with correct permissions and checks) but not with login keychain. It always ends up asking user for their login password.
Here is how the code looks, roughly,
NSDictionary *query = @{
(__bridge id)kSecClass: (__bridge id)kSecClassIdentity,
(__bridge id)kSecReturnRef: @YES,
(__bridge id)kSecMatchLimit: (__bridge id)kSecMatchLimitAll
};
CFTypeRef result = NULL;
OSStatus status = SecItemCopyMatching((__bridge CFDictionaryRef)query, (CFTypeRef *)&amp;result);
NSArray *identities = ( NSArray *)result;
SecIdentityRef identity = NULL;
for (id _ident in identities) {
// pick one as required
}
SecKeyRef privateKey = NULL;
OSStatus status = SecIdentityCopyPrivateKey(identity, &amp;privateKey);
NSData *strData = [string dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
unsigned char hash[CC_SHA256_DIGEST_LENGTH];
CC_SHA256(strData.bytes, (CC_LONG)strData.length, hash);
NSData *digestData = [NSData dataWithBytes:hash length:CC_SHA256_DIGEST_LENGTH];
CFErrorRef cfError = NULL;
NSData *signature = (__bridge_transfer NSData *)SecKeyCreateSignature(privateKey,
kSecKeyAlgorithmRSASignatureDigestPKCS1v15SHA256,
(__bridge CFDataRef)digestData,
&amp;cfError);
Above code raises these system logs in console
default 08:44:52.781024+0000 securityd client is valid, proceeding
default 08:44:52.781172+0000 securityd code requirement check failed (-67050), client is not Apple-signed
default 08:44:52.781233+0000 securityd displaying keychain prompt for /Applications/Demo.app(81692)
If the key is in login keychain, is there any way to do SecKeyCreateSignature without raising prompts? What does client is not Apple-signed mean?
PS: Identities are pre-installed either manually or via some device management solution, the application is not installing them.
I'd like to implement unit tests that exercise keys made available via a persistent token interface. However, when attempting to list available tokens by passing kSecAttrAccessGroupToken as the kSecAttrAccessGroup to SecItemCopyMatching from a unit test, -34018 is returned. It succeeds without the kSecAttrAccessGroup, which makes sense given the unit test binary does not have com.apple.token Keychain Group. The Xcode UI indicates "Capabilities are not supported" for the unit test binary when attempting to add a Keychain Sharing capability to enable use of persistent tokens. This feels like a dead end but begs the question is there any way to implement unit tests to exercise a persistent token interface? It seems like the only path may be write unit tests that drive an independent app that handles the interactions with the persistent token.
Hello,
I have encountered several challenges related to System Integrity Protection (SIP) state detection and code signing requirements. I would like to seek clarification and guidance on the proper approach to programmatically determine the SIP state.
Here are the issues I’ve encountered:
XPC Code Signing Check APIs:
APIs like setCodeSigningRequirement and setConnectionCodeSigningRequirement do not work when SIP disabled and that's ok given what SIP is.
LaunchCodeRequirement API:
When using Process.launchRequirement, the LaunchCodeRequirement API does not function anymore when SIP disabled.
The IsSIPProtected requirement behaves in a way that is not clearly documented -- it appears to only apply to pre-installed Apple apps.
Legacy APIs:
Older APIs like SecCodeCheckValidity are likely to be non-functional, though I haven’t had the chance to validate this yet.
Private API Concerns:
So to mitigate those limitations I prefer my app to not even try to connect to untrusted XPC or launch untrusted Processes when SIP is disabled. The only way to determine SIP state I could find is a low-level C function csr_get_active_config. However, this function is not declared in any publicly available header file, indicating that it is a private API.
Since private APIs cannot be used in App Store-distributed apps and are best avoided for Developer ID-signed apps, this does not seem like a viable solution.
Given these limitations, what is the recommended and proper approach to programmatically determine the SIP state in a macOS application?
Any insights or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Hi there,
I'm trying to use SFAuthorizationPluginView in order to show some fields in the login screen, have the user click the arrow, then continue to show more fields as a second step of authentication. How can I accomplish this?
Register multiple SecurityAgentPlugins each with their own mechanism and nib?
Some how get MacOS to call my SFAuthorizationPluginView::view() and return a new view?
Manually remove text boxes and put in new ones when button is pressed
I don't believe 1 works, for the second mechanism ended up calling the first mechanism's view's view()
Cheers,
-Ken
For security reasons, my application needs to prohibit external devices. If it is determined that the current phone is connected to any external devices, including non MFI authenticated devices, the app will exit. Please tell me how to do it? Thanks for your help.
Hello,
I have an application which uses a helper[1] to download[2] files. When files download is a DMG and user mounts the image to run the application from this DMG it doesn't pass Gatekeeper. It presents the "Application XYZ.app can't be opened.".
Same file downloaded via Safari shows a different dialog, the "XYZ.app is an app downloaded from the internet. Are you sure you want to open it?"
In the system log I see this line:
exec of /Volumes/SampleApp/SampleApp.app/Contents/MacOS/SampleApp denied since it was quarantined by Download\x20Helper and created without user consent, qtn-flags was 0x00000187
The application is running sandboxed and hardened, the main application has com.apple.security.files.downloads.read-write entitlement. Everything is signed by DeveloperID and passes all checks[3].
I tried to check the responsible process[4] of the helper. Then trivial stuff like download folder access in System Settings/Privacy & Security/Files & Folders. Everything seems to be fine.
For what it worths the value of quarantine attribute is following:
com.apple.quarantine: 0087;6723b80e;My App;
The Safari downloaded one posses:
com.apple.quarantine: 0083;6723b9fa;Safari;02162070-2561-42BE-B30B-19A0E94FE7CA
Also tried a few more ways and got to 0081 with Edge and 0082 with a sample app with similar setup. Not sure if that has any meaning.
What could I be doing wrong that Gatekeeper right away refuses to run the application from DMG instead of showing the dialog like in other cases?
[1] The executable is in application bundle located in Contents/Helpers/DownloadHelper.app in the main application bundle.
[2] Nothing fancy, curl + regular POSIX file operations
[3] codesign, syspolicy_check, spctl
[4] launchctl procinfo pid
Due to business requirements, we need to transfer our app Gem Space for iOS from our current Apple Developer account to a new account.
We have a major concern regarding our users and the data associated with the app.
The user data is currently stored using an App Group with the identifier, for example: "group.com.app.sharedData"
According to some information we’ve found, it might be possible to complete the transfer by removing the App Group from the old account and creating a new one with the same identifier in the new account.
However, other sources suggest that App Group containers are owned by the specific team, and data stored in the container may become inaccessible after the app is transferred to a different team. This raises concerns about the possibility of users losing access to their data after updating the app from the new account.
Could you please clarify the expected behavior of App Groups in this case?
Do we need to perform any kind of data migration, and if so, could you please provide detailed guidance on how to do it safely and without impacting user data access?
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
I have 2 basic questions related to Launch Constraints:
[Q1] Are Launch Constraints supposed to work when SIP is disabled?
From what I'm observing, when SIP is disabled, Launch Constraints (e.g. Launch Constraint Parent Process) are not enforced. I can understand that. But it's a bit confusing considering that the stack diagram in the WWDC 2023 session is placing the 'Environment Constraints' block under SIP, not above.
Also the documentation only mentions SIP for the 'is-sip-protected' fact.
[Q2] Is the SpawnConstraint key in legacy launchd plist files (i.e. inside /Library/Launch(Agents|Daemons)) officially supported?
From what I'm seeing, it seems to be working when SIP is enabled. But the WWDC session and the documentation don't really talk about this case.
Hello!
I do know apple does not support electron, but I do not think this is an electron related issue, rather something I am doing wrong. I'd be curious to find out why the keychain login is happenning after my app has been signed with the bundleid, entitlements, and provision profile.
Before using the provision profile I did not have this issue, but it is needed for assessments feature.
I'm trying to ship an Electron / macOS desktop app that must run inside Automatic Assessment Configuration. The build signs and notarizes successfully, and assessment mode itself starts on Apple-arm64 machines, but every single launch shows the system dialog that asks to allow access to the "login" keychain. The dialog appears on totally fresh user accounts, so it's not tied to anything I store there.
It has happened ever since I have added the provision profile to the electron builder to finally test assessment out.
entitlements.inherit.plist keys
<key>com.apple.security.cs.allow-jit</key> <true/>
<key>com.apple.security.cs.allow-unsigned-executable-memory</key> <true/>
entitlements.plist keys:
<key>com.apple.security.cs.allow-jit</key> <true/>
<key>com.apple.security.cs.allow-unsigned-executable-memory</key> <true/>
<key>com.apple.developer.automatic-assessment-configuration</key> <true/>
I'm honestly not sure whether the keychain is expected, but I have tried a lot of entitlement combinations to get rid of It. Electron builder is doing the signing, and we manually use the notary tool to notarize but probably irrelevant.
mac: {
notarize: false,
target: 'dir',
entitlements: 'buildResources/entitlements.mac.plist',
provisioningProfile: 'buildResources/xyu.provisionprofile',
entitlementsInherit: 'buildResources/entitlements.mac.inherit.plist',
Any lead is welcome!
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Automatic Assessment Configuration
Assessment
Security
Entitlements
Hi all,
I'm using a CryptoTokenKit (CTK) extension to perform code signing without having the private key stored on my laptop. The extension currently only supports the rsaSignatureDigestPKCS1v15SHA256 algorithm:
func tokenSession(_ session: TKTokenSession, supports operation: TKTokenOperation, keyObjectID: TKToken.ObjectID, algorithm: TKTokenKeyAlgorithm) -> Bool {
return algorithm.isAlgorithm(SecKeyAlgorithm.rsaSignatureDigestPKCS1v15SHA256)
}
This setup works perfectly with codesign, and signing completes without any issues.
However, when I try to use productsign, the system correctly detects and delegates signing to my CTK extension, but it seems to always request rsaSignatureDigestPKCS1v15SHA1 instead:
productsign --timestamp --sign <identity> unsigned.pkg signed.pkg
productsign: using timestamp authority for signature
productsign: signing product with identity "Developer ID Installer: <org> (<team>)" from keychain (null)
...
Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-50
"algid:sign:RSA:digest-PKCS1v15:SHA1: algorithm not supported by the key"
...
productsign: error: Failed to sign the product.
From what I understand, older versions of macOS used SHA1 for code signing, but codesign has since moved to SHA256 (at least when legacy compatibility isn't a concern). Oddly, productsign still seems to default to SHA1, even in 2025.
Is there a known way to force productsign to use SHA256 instead of SHA1 for the signature digest algorithm? Or is there some flag or configuration I'm missing?
Thanks in advance!
I'm trying to develop a GUI app on macOS that takes control of the screen so that user must perform certain actions before regaining control of the desktop. I don't want the user to be able to kill the process (for example via an "assassin" shell script that looks for the process and terminates it with kill).
Based on this post it is not possible to create an unkillable process on macOS.
I'm wondering, however, if it's possible to run the GUI process in root (or with other escalated privileges) such that the logged in user cannot kill it. So it's killable, but you need privileges above what the logged in user has (assuming they are not root). I'm not worried about a root user being able to kill it.
Such an app would run in a managed context. I've played around with Service Background Tasks, but so far haven't found what I'm looking for.
I'm hoping someone (especially from Apple) might be able to tell me if this goal is even achievable with macOS Sequoia (and beyond).
Attempting to DECRYPT a cipher message using the Apple API SecKeyCreateDecryptedData(privateKey, .rsaEncryptionOAEPSHA256, encryptedMessage). Decryption ALWAYS fails for every algorithm.
SecKeyCreateDecryptedDataWithParameters Error: `Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-50 "algid:encrypt:RSA:OAEP:SHA256: algorithm not supported by the key <SecKeyRef:('com.yubico.Authenticator.TokenExtension:5621CDF8560D4C412030886584EC4C9E394CC376DD9738B0CCBB51924FC26EB6') 0x3007fd150>" UserInfo={numberOfErrorsDeep=0, NSDescription=algid:encrypt:RSA:OAEP:SHA256: algorithm not supported by the key <SecKeyRef:('com.yubico.Authenticator.TokenExtension:5621CDF8560D4C412030886584EC4C9E394CC376DD9738B0CCBB51924FC26EB6') 0x3007fd150>}`
Decryption failed: SecKeyCreateDecryptedData returned nil.
Error: One or more parameters passed to a function were not valid.
When checking with SecKeyIsAlgorithmSupported(privateKey, .decrypt, <ANYalgorithm>) all algorithms fail. Btw - The privateKey does support decryption when retrieving the attributes.
Important to know:
The private key is a reference to an external private key placed in the iOS Keychain via a 3rd party CryptoTokenKit Extension app. When I perform, the SecKeyCreateSignature(...) and pass in the SAME privateKey reference, the OS automatically calls the 3rd party app to perform a successful signing with the private key that reside on a YubiKey.
Here's my code for obtaining the private key reference from an Identity:
func getKeyPairFromIdentity() -> (privateKey: SecKey, publicKey: SecKey)? {
let query = NSDictionary(
dictionary: [
kSecClass as String: kSecClassIdentity,
kSecAttrTokenID as String: self.tokenID!,
kSecReturnRef as String: kCFBooleanTrue as Any
]
)
var identityRef: CFTypeRef?
let status = SecItemCopyMatching(query, &identityRef)
if status == errSecSuccess, let identity = identityRef {
var privateKeyRef: SecKey?
let keyStatus = SecIdentityCopyPrivateKey(identity as! SecIdentity, &privateKeyRef)
if keyStatus == errSecSuccess, let privateKey = privateKeyRef {
let publicKey = SecKeyCopyPublicKey(privateKey)
if let publicKey = publicKey {
print("Private and public keys extracted successfully.")
return (privateKey, publicKey)
} else {
print("Failed to extract public key from private key.")
return nil
}
} else {
print("SecIdentityCopyPrivateKey: Private key not found error: \(keyStatus)")
return nil
}
} else {
print("SecIdentity not found or error: \(status)")
return nil
}
}