General: Forums topic: Privacy & Security Apple Platform Security support document Developer > Security Enabling enhanced security for your app documentation article Creating enhanced security helper extensions documentation article Security Audit Thoughts forums post Cryptography: Forums tags: Security, Apple CryptoKit Security framework documentation Apple CryptoKit framework documentation Common Crypto man pages — For the full list of pages, run: % man -k 3cc For more information about man pages, see Reading UNIX Manual Pages. On Cryptographic Key Formats forums post SecItem attributes for keys forums post CryptoCompatibility sample code Keychain: Forums tags: Security Security > Keychain Items documentation TN3137 On Mac keychain APIs and implementations SecItem Fundamentals forums post SecItem Pitfalls and Best Practices forums post Investigating hard-to-reproduce keychain problems forums post App ID Prefix Change and Keychain Access forums post Smart cards and other secure tokens: Forums tag: CryptoTokenKit CryptoTokenKit framework documentation Mac-specific resources: Forums tags: Security Foundation, Security Interface Security Foundation framework documentation Security Interface framework documentation BSD Privilege Escalation on macOS Related: Networking Resources — This covers high-level network security, including HTTPS and TLS. Network Extension Resources — This covers low-level network security, including VPN and content filters. Code Signing Resources Notarisation Resources Trusted Execution Resources — This includes Gatekeeper. App Sandbox Resources Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

General: Forums topic: Privacy & Security Privacy Resources Security Resources Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

I have an app (currently not released on App Store) which runs on both iOS and macOS. The app has widgets for both iOS and macOS which uses user preference (set in app) into account while showing data. Before upgrading to macOS 15 (until Sonoma) widgets were working fine and app was launching correctly, but after upgrading to macOS 15 Sequoia, every time I launch the app it give popup saying '“Kontest” would like to access data from other apps. Keeping app data separate makes it easier to manage your privacy and security.' and also widgets do not get user preferences and throw the same type of error on Console application when using logging. My App group for both iOS and macOS is 'group.com.xxxxxx.yyyyy'. I am calling it as 'UserDefaults(suiteName: Constants.userDefaultsGroupID)!.bool(forKey: "shouldFetchAllEventsFromCalendar")'. Can anyone tell, what am I doing wrong here?

On macOS 26.1 (25B78) I can't give Full Disk Access to sshd-keygen-wrapper. Now my Jenkins jobs do not work because they do not have the permission to execute the necessary scripts. Until macOS 26.1 everything worked fine. I restarted the machine several times and tried to give access from Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Full Disk Access but it just does not work. I tried logging with ssh on the machine and executing a script but again nothing happened.

Hi, For some reason all implemented (and working before) App Attest code has stopped working. iOS is unable to get attestation returning "Operations could not be completed. (com.apple.devicecheck.error error 4.) (serverUnavailable)" On https://developer.apple.com/system-status/ I can see green dot but I suspect that infrastructure is not OK. This is happening with multiple of our apps in multiple geographical regions. Can anyone confirm these problems or know whether it is strictly connected to App Attest service availability?

We have a custom SecurityAgentPlugin that is triggered by multiple authorizationdb entries. Some customers report that the SecurityAgent process takes window focus even though no UI or windows are displayed. Our plugin explicitly ignores the _securityAgent user and does not show any UI for that user. However, in macOS 26.1, it appears that the plugin still causes the SecurityAgent to take focus as soon as it is triggered. Is this a change in macOS 26.1 or a bug? Can we do anything to prevent "focus stealing"?

Hello, These questions are in regard to transferring Sign in With Apple users as part of an app transfer to another developer team. We’ve already read and absorbed the following documents from Apple, but we still have questions that aren’t covered in these documents, due to the unique nature of our use case. Transferring Your Apps and Users to Another Team Bringing New Apps and Users Into Your Team Resolving Sign in with Apple Response Errors Background: We have a suite of three apps that we are tranferring to another developer team. Each app supports Sign In With Apple. Our accounts/users are shared among all three apps. We have all three apps currently grouped together for SIWA. We’re aware that we will need to un-group them before doing the SIWA user transfer. Questions: The API for generating and exchanging transferIDs for users (endpoint /auth/usermigrationinfo) requires a parameter client_id which is described in the docs as "The identifier (App ID or Services ID) for the transferring app." Since we are transferring a set of three apps which share users, we aren’t sure which AppID to use, or whether it matters? We’re assuming we only need to transfer the users once in total (not once-per-app), is this correct? Does it matter which of the three apps’ AppID we use for this? To give more specific context to this question, here’s a more detailed example: For simplicity’s sake, let’s say we have 10 user accounts total, and any of them could sign into any of our three apps. Users 1-7 have signed into all three apps previously User8 has only signed into AppA User9 has only signed into AppB User10 has only signed into AppC Ideally we want to transfer all 10 users all at once. Does it matter which AppID we use for client_id? For example, if we use AppA as the client_id, will we still be able to transfer all 10 users (including User9 and User10)? We’ve tested this on the sender team side, and we’re able to successfully create transferIDs for all 10 users using AppA as client_id. But we’re not sure if this will still work on the recipient side, that we’ll be able to exchange the transferID for all 10 users. . To add another wrinkle, there is a possibility that we won’t be able to transfer one of our three apps (due to one of Apple’s limitations for app transfer). In that case we’ll have to create a new app on the recipient team and shut down the old one on the sender team. But the other two apps in the suite would still be transferred normally. We’d still want all 10 users to be transferred, as the intention is still that all our users can sign into any of their existing accounts in any of the three apps. Would this scenario change the answer to question 1? For example, say we aren’t able to transfer AppC over to the new development team, but instead had to create a new app, AppCNew on the new development team. But we still are able to transfer AppA and AppB. Would we still be able to transfer all 10 users using AppA as the client_id? Including User10 who only ever signed in to AppC (which isn’t being transferred)? We'd really appreciate any answers or guidance that anyone can provide. Thank you, Adam

According to https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/app_sandbox/discovering_and_diagnosing_app_sandbox_violations it is possible to view detailed violation reports for non-system services. Is it possible to do something similar for system services? I have encountered an issue where several (all?) of my Macbooks get into a sandbox violation situation (I assume). Below is in excerpt from logs focusing just on the sandbox violation. The errors are surrounded by XPC failures and errors. error 23:23:21.382263+0100 kernel Sandbox: Family(1316) deny(1) mach-lookup com.apple.contactsd.persistence error 23:23:24.385962+0100 kernel Sandbox: Family(1316) deny(1) mach-lookup com.apple.contactsd.persistence error 23:23:27.389910+0100 kernel Sandbox: Family(1316) deny(1) mach-lookup com.apple.contactsd.persistence error 23:23:36.408940+0100 kernel Sandbox: Family(1316) deny(1) mach-lookup com.apple.contactsd.persistence error 23:23:45.419593+0100 kernel Sandbox: Family(1316) deny(1) mach-lookup com.apple.contactsd.persistence error 23:23:54.432109+0100 kernel Sandbox: Family(1316) deny(1) mach-lookup com.apple.contactsd.persistence The above is just an except, and it seems that Family, imagent and searchpartyuseragent are trying to access com.apple.contactsd.persistance once per second or so and failing (there are also some attempts to reach com.apple.timed.xpc, but an insignificant amount in comparison to com.apple.contactsd.persistance). This in turn causes Diagnostics Reporter to start, and then end hastily almost every ten seconds. fault 23:23:05.903908+0100 Diagnostics Reporter Invalid launch. fault 23:23:16.038017+0100 Diagnostics Reporter Invalid launch. fault 23:23:26.136348+0100 Diagnostics Reporter Invalid launch. fault 23:23:36.274543+0100 Diagnostics Reporter Invalid launch. fault 23:23:46.414546+0100 Diagnostics Reporter Invalid launch. I have no idea how I did this, but I seemed to have messed up sandbox access rights to contacts for some system services?

Please help me clarify the current situation regarding the necessity of a privacy manifest file in 3rd party SDKs. It would be nice to have a reply from someone working at Apple, to have a reliable answer. A quick summery of the events from last year https://developer.apple.com/support/third-party-SDK-requirements/ : "Starting in spring 2024, you must include the privacy manifest for any SDK listed below when you submit new apps in App Store Connect that include those SDKs, or when you submit an app update that adds one of the listed SDKs as part of the update." Last autumn, we started receiving warning emails from Apple after initiating app reviews, even when our apps did not have a newly added SDK: ITMS-91061: Missing privacy manifest - Starting November 12, 2024, if a new app includes a privacy-impacting SDK, or an app update adds a new privacy-impacting SDK, the SDK must include a privacy manifest file. Please contact the provider of the SDK that includes this file to get an updated SDK version with a privacy manifest. According to this warning message, app updates which do not contain any new SDKs are still not affected. Since then, at one point in time the deadline changed, as now we have February 12, 2025 in the privacy manifest documentation: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/adding-a-privacy-manifest-to-your-app-or-third-party-sdk However, this page does not contain any mention of the circumstances, it only states in general that apps you submit for review in App Store Connect must contain a valid privacy manifest file for a certain number of commonly used third-party SDKs. My questions Does the February deadline apply to every app update, even if they do not contain any newly added SDKs? Or does it still affect only the app updates "that adds one of the listed SDKs as part of the update." ? If the former, the 3rd party requirements page should be updated in my opinion. And if the latter, why does the documentation not contain this important piece of information? We have a basic product which then gets customised for the clients so we upload several different apps based on the same code with the same dependencies. How is it possible that during autumn, Apple sent ITMS-91061: Missing privacy manifest warnings for some of our apps, but did not send it for others? Does Apple not validate all the apps but only some of them randomly? Also, the warning still states that it should be relevant if "an app update adds a new privacy-impacting SDK", but that was not the case for us, we did not add anything newly to our apps - why did we even get these warnings then? Just in general: when the deadlines change, is there any channel where Apple communicates these, besides the warning emails? I did not see any posts on the Apple Developer site's News page about this February date, I just found it by accident. I don't even remember seeing a notice about the original November deadline, we just started receiving the email warnings without expecting them. Thank you in advance for anyone sharing an answer.

I have these two pods: Frameworks/GTMSessionFetcher.framework/GTMSessionFetcher Frameworks/GoogleToolboxForMac.framework/GoogleToolboxForMac they are showing this error: ITMS-91061: Missing privacy manifest I've tried manually making privacy files, I've tried updating the SDK's too. I cant update them because firebase depends on GTM Session at a lower version and if I update, MLKit depends on toolbox (even though its deprecating) If I upgrade then the whole project explodes. What do I do. I need help. this is all I get and it doesn't help: https://developer.apple.com/support/third-party-SDK-requirements

Hi everyone, We are using the App Attest API to securely transition users to our new system. As part of this, we store the Key ID of the attestation key for each user to verify their identity later. However, we’ve noticed that some users are encountering the error “DCErrorInvalidKey 3” when calling generateAssertion. Importantly, the key was previously successfully attested, and generateAssertion has worked before for these users. Our questions: Could this error be caused by an app or iOS update? Is it problematic to link an attestation key's Key ID directly to a user, or are there scenarios where the key might change or become invalid? If there’s a way to mitigate this issue or recover affected users, what best practices would you recommend? Any help or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Hi Apple Developer Team, I am encountering an issue with the “Sign in with Apple” feature. While implementing this functionality in my dotnet application, I noticed that the user’s first name and last name are not being returned, even though I have explicitly requested the name scope. However, the email and other requested information are returned successfully. Here are the details of my implementation: 1. Scope Requested: name, email 2. Response Received: Email and other data are present, but fullName is missing or null. 3. Expected Behavior: I expected to receive the user’s first and last name as per the fullName scope. I have verified the implementation and ensured that the correct scopes are being passed in the request. Could you please help clarify the following? 1. Are there specific conditions under which Apple may not return the user’s fullName despite the scope being requested? 2. Is there a recommended approach or fallback mechanism to handle this scenario? 3. Could this behavior be related to a limitation or change in the API, or might it be an issue on my end? I also came to know that for initial sign in the user details will be displayed in the signin-apple payload as Form data but how do I fetch those form-data from the signin-apple request, please suggest I would greatly appreciate any guidance or solutions to resolve this issue. Thank you for your support!

Please excuse my lack of understanding of what are probably fundamental concepts in iOS/iPadOS development but I have searched far and wide for documentation and haven't had much luck so far. I am not sure that what I want to do is even possible with an iPad iPadOS app. Goals: Develop a Swift iPadOS app that can digitally sign a file using a PIV SmartCard/Token (Personal Identity Verification Card): Insert a PIV SmartCard/Token (such as a Yubikey 5Ci) into the lightning port of an iPadOS device iPad (NOT MacOS) Interface with the SmartCard/Token to access the user's PIV certificate/signature and "use it" to sign a file Question 1: How to get the PIV Certificate from SmartCard/Token/Yubikey into iPadOS keychain?   * Do we need to get the PIV certificate into the iOS keychain? Is there another way to interact with a SmartCard directly?   * This should prompt the user for their PIN? Question 2: How to get our Swift app to hook into the event that the SmartCard/Token is inserted into the device and then interface with the user's certificate?   * When is the user prompted to enter their PIN for SmartCard/Token/Yubikey?   * Do we need to use CyrptoTokenKit to interface with a smartcard inserted into the lightning port of an iOS device?

Hello. I am trying to give an update to my app but it again and again gets rejected due to the ATT Prompt. Before this late week I gave the update and it got live without any issue. Now I done some minor changes in the App. Apple Response. The app uses the AppTrackingTransparency framework, but we are unable to locate the App Tracking Transparency permission request when reviewed on iPadOS 18.2. Next Steps Explain where we can find the App Tracking Transparency permission request in the app. The request should appear before any data is collected that could be used to track the user. If App Tracking Transparency is implemented but the permission request is not appearing on devices running the latest operating system, review the available documentation and confirm App Tracking Transparency has been correctly implemented. If your app does not track users, update your app privacy information in App Store Connect to not declare tracking. You must have the Account Holder or Admin role to update app privacy information. My Response: Hello Apple Team Thank you for your feedback. We have tested the app on iPadOS 18.2, also on iPhone 18.1 and the App Tracking Transparency dialogue is appearing as expected on the main home screen when the user enters the app. To help demonstrate this, we’ve attached a video showing the ATT prompt in action. If there is still an issue with the dialogue or if it needs to be placed in a different position, we kindly request your guidance on what needs to be adjusted. Please let us know the details so we can address it promptly. Thank you for your support "I uploaded a video with images showcasing the ATT prompt but now again they rejected the update with the exact same reply. Which I am thinking it may be a bot reply. Now what to do how to solve it?

FB18383742 Setup 🛠️ Xcode 16.4 (16F6) 📱 iPhone 13 mini (iOS 18.0.1) ⌚️ Apple Watch Series 10 (watchOS 11.3.1) Observations As AccessorySetupKit does not request "Core Bluetooth permissions", when a watchOS companion app is installed after having installed the iOS app, the toggle in the watch settings for Privacy & Security > Bluetooth is turned off and disabled After removing the iPhone associated with the Apple Watch, Bluetooth works as expected in the watchOS app Upon reinstalling the iOS app, there's a toggle for Bluetooth in the iOS ASK app's settings and the ASK picker cannot be presented 🤨 From ASK Documentation: AccessorySetupKit is available for iOS and iPadOS. The accessory’s Bluetooth permission doesn’t sync to a companion watchOS app. But this doesn't address not being able to use Core Bluetooth in a watch companion app at all 🥲 Reproducing the bug Install the iOS + watchOS apps Launch iOS app, tap "start scan", observe devices can be discovered (project is set up to find heart rate monitors) Launch watchOS, tap allow on Bluetooth permission pop-up watchOS app crashes 💥 Meanwhile, in the iOS app, there should be a log entry for 💗 CBCentralManager state: poweredOff and the ASK picker is no longer able to discover any devices The state of the device permissions: iOS app has no paired accessories or Bluetooth permission watchOS app's Bluetooth permission shown as turned off & disabled Remove the iOS app Relaunch the watchOS app Notice the CBCentralManager state is unauthorized Remove and reinstall the watchOS app Tap allow on Bluetooth permission pop-up watchOS app does not crash and CBCentralManager state is poweredOn The state of the watch permissions: Bluetooth is turned on & the toggle is not disabled Note that at this time the iOS app is not installed, there is no way to remove Bluetooth permission for the watch app. Reinstall + launch the iOS app Notice a warning in the log: [##### WARNING #####] App has companion watch app that maybe affected if using CoreBluetooth framework. Please read developer documentation for AccessorySetupKit. Notice a log entry for 💗 CBCentralManager state: poweredOn before tapping start scan Tap start scan and observe another log entry: Failed to show picker due to: The operation couldn’t be completed. (ASErrorDomain error 550.) ASErrorDomain 550: The picker can't be used because the app is in the background. Is this the expected error? 🤔 The state of the iOS permissions: The app's settings show a Bluetooth toggle normally associated with Core Bluetooth, but the app never showed a Core Bluetooth pop-up The iOS ASK app now has Core Bluetooth permission 😵‍💫 Following up with Apple This is a known bug that should be fixed in watchOS 26 when Bluetooth permissions for watch apps can be set independently of the iOS app. I've yet to test it with watchOS 26. See repo for the same post with screenshots of the settings and demo code reproducing the bug: https://github.com/superturboryan/AccessorySetupKit-CoreBluetooth-watchOS-Demo

I recently turned on the enhanced security options for my macOS app in Xcode 26.0.1 by adding the Enhanced Security capability in the Signing and Capabilities tab. Then, Xcode adds the following key-value sets (with some other key-values) to my app's entitlements file. <key>com.apple.security.hardened-process.enhanced-security-version</key> <integer>1</integer> <key>com.apple.security.hardened-process.platform-restrictions</key> <integer>2</integer> These values appear following the documentation about the enhanced security feature (Enabling enhanced security for your app) and the app works without any issues. However, when I submitted a new version to the Mac App Store, my submission was rejected, and I received the following message from the App Review team via the App Store Connect. Guideline 2.4.5(i) - Performance Your app incorrectly implements sandboxing, or it contains one or more entitlements with invalid values. Please review the included entitlements and sandboxing documentation and resolve this issue before resubmitting a new binary. Entitlement "com.apple.security.hardened-process.enhanced-security-version" value must be boolean and true. Entitlement "com.apple.security.hardened-process.platform-restrictions" value must be boolean and true. When I changed those values directly in the entitlements file based on this message, the app appears to still work. However, these settings are against the description in the documentation I mentioned above and against the settings Xcode inserted after changing the GUI setting view. So, my question is, which settings are actually correct to enable the Enhanced Security and the Additional Runtime Platform Restrictions?

Is there any particular reason why ASWebAuthenticationSession doesn't have support for async/await? (example below) do { let callbackURL = try await webAuthSession.start() } catch { // handle error } I'm curious if this style of integration doesn't exist for architectural reasons? Or is the legacy completion handler style preserved in order to prevent existing integrations from breaking?

Hi Apple, Currently we want to have enhancement for SMS OTP that we want to implement OTP Autofill, But after do some research we're stuck with option that the OTP only show in keyboard suggestion, is there any way for making OTP is automatically filled without user have to click the keyboard suggestion when receiving the SMS. Thanks Best Regards, Admiral Sultano Harly.

iOS18.1.1 macOS15.1.1 xcode16.1 Error Domain=com.apple.AuthenticationServices.AuthorizationError Code=1004 "Unable to verify webcredentials association of ********** with domain ******************. Please try again in a few seconds." Our domain must query with VPN, so I set webcredentials:qa.ejeokvv.com?mode=developer following: "If you use a private web server, which is unreachable from the public internet, while developing your app, enable the alternate mode feature to bypass the CDN and connect directly to your server. To do this, add a query string to your associated domains entitlement, as shown in the following example: :?mode= " but it still not working, even after I set mode=developer. Please help!!!!

Hi! Is it possible to disable the option for users to 'Sign in with Another Device'? I encounter this message during the authentication process and I want to prevent it from appearing. I appreciate your help and look forward to your response.

Hi all, I’m building a password manager app for iOS. The app implements an ASCredentialProviderExtension and has the entitlement com.apple.developer.authentication-services.autofill-credential-provider. From a UX perspective, I’d like to help users enable my app under: Settings → General → AutoFill & Passwords What I’ve observed: Calling UIApplication.openSettingsURLString only opens my app’s own Settings page, not the AutoFill list. Some apps (e.g. Google Authenticator) appear to redirect users directly into the AutoFill Passwords & Passkeys screen when you tap “Enable AutoFill.” 1Password goes even further: when you tap “Enable” in 1Password App, it shows a system pop-up, prompts for Face ID, and then enables 1Password as the AutoFill provider without the user ever leaving the app. Questions: Is there a public API or entitlement that allows apps to deep-link users directly to the AutoFill Passwords & Passkeys screen? Is there a supported API to programmatically request that my app be enabled as an AutoFill provider (similar to what 1Password seems to achieve)? If not, what is the recommended approach for guiding users through this flow? Thanks in advance!

Hi! We are developing an authentication plugin for macOS that integrates with the system's authentication flow. The plugin is designed to prompt the user for approval via a push notification in our app before allowing access. The plugin is added as the first mechanism in the authenticate rule, followed by the default builtin:authenticate as a fallback. When the system requests authentication (e.g., during screen unlock), our plugin successfully displays the custom UI and sends a push notification to the user's device. However, I've encountered the following issue: If the user does not approve the push notification within ~30 seconds, the system resets the screen lock (expected behavior). If the user approves the push notification within approximately 30 seconds but doesn’t start entering their password before the timeout expires, the system still resets the screen lock before they can enter their password, effectively canceling the session. What I've Tried: Attempted to imitate mouse movement after the push button was clicked to keep the session active. Created a display sleep prevention assertion using IOKit to prevent the screen from turning off. Used the caffeinate command to keep the display and system awake. Tried setting the result as allow for the authorization request and passing an empty password to prevent the display from turning off. I also checked the system logs when this issue occurred and found the following messages: ___loginwindow: -[LWScreenLock (Private) askForPasswordSecAgent] | localUser = >timeout loginwindow: -[LWScreenLock handleUnlockResult:] _block_invoke | ERROR: Unexpected _lockRequestedBy of:7 sleeping screen loginwindow: SleepDisplay | enter powerd: Process (loginwindow) is requesting display idle___ These messages suggest that the loginwindow process encounters a timeout condition, followed by the display entering sleep mode. Despite my attempts to prevent this behavior, the screen lock still resets prematurely. Questions: Is there a documented (or undocumented) system timeout for the entire authentication flow during screen unlock that I cannot override? Are there any strategies for pausing or extending the authentication timeout to allow for complex authentication flows like push notifications? Any guidance or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!