9 ms·

They allow a 3rd party to change Kernel stuff with an update. Apple banned this a while ago.

• tambourine_man 2y ago
  *banned Made it a lot harder for everyone involved, but still possible, as it’s a very useful technique. PS: Since I'm being downvoted, here is the link showing that it is still possible using Reduced Security: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchl768f7291/mac https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchl768f7291/... I doubt Apple will completely disable kext in the near future. Making it hard enough to be impractical has most of the benefits already.
• kykqx 2y ago
  It is supposed to be like that. Antivirus software always works as a driver in the kernel, no other way. You'll get the same in Linux, for example. In MacOS it may be slightly better (if I remember right Darwin is a micro-kernel), but in fact a broken driver still can crash the system there.
  • philistine 2y ago
    > Antivirus software always works as a driver in the kernel, no other way. You're confidently wrong: https://developer.apple.com/support/kernel-extensions/ https://developer.apple.com/support/kernel-extensions/
    • kykqx 2y ago
      This page is only about using some APIs, that are now supposed to be called through wrappers. I would say it significantly limits the developers, and also may introduce additional flaws.
      • philistine 2y ago
        Yet it is how antivirus works on Mac now.