CVE-2021-1763: 
macOS vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2021-1763 is a buffer overflow vulnerability discovered in Apple's Model I/O component that affects macOS Big Sur, Catalina, and Mojave operating systems, as well as iOS 14.4 and iPadOS 14.4. The vulnerability was discovered by Mickey Jin of Trend Micro working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative and was patched in February 2021 with the release of macOS Big Sur 11.2, Security Update 2021-001 Catalina, Security Update 2021-001 Mojave (Apple Support).

The vulnerability is a buffer overflow issue in the Model I/O component that occurs when processing maliciously crafted USD files. The issue was addressed by implementing improved bounds checking in the affected systems. The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS v2.0 base score of 9.0 (HIGH) with vector (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C) (NVD, Rapid7).

When exploited, this vulnerability could lead to unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This means an attacker could potentially execute malicious code on the target system by having the victim process a specially crafted USD file (Apple Support).

Apple has addressed this vulnerability by implementing improved bounds checking in the security updates released in February 2021. Users should update to macOS Big Sur 11.2, Security Update 2021-001 Catalina, Security Update 2021-001 Mojave, iOS 14.4, or iPadOS 14.4 to protect against this vulnerability (Apple Support).