First Apple M5 memory exploit discovered using Anthropic AI, gives root access on MacOS — Claude Mythos helps security researchers bypass Memory Integrity Enforcement
A security research team named Calif has discovered the first memory exploit on Apple's M5 chip, enabling local privilege escalation to root on macOS. The exploit bypasses the Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) feature, a hardware-level security mechanism designed to prevent common memory corruption attacks. The vulnerability was disclosed to Apple in advance and is part of a series of AI-assisted findings using Anthropic's Mythos Preview.
- ▪The exploit allows a standard user to gain root access on macOS by running a simple command.
- ▪It successfully bypasses MIE, a hardware-enforced security feature on M5 and A19 chips based on ARM MTE.
- ▪The research was conducted using Anthropic's AI model Mythos Preview and tested on macOS 26.4.1 with an Apple M5 machine.
- ▪Calif disclosed the vulnerability to Apple before public release as part of their 'Month of AI-Discovered Bugs' initiative.
- ▪MIE is designed to prevent memory-related exploits like buffer overflows and use-after-free with minimal performance impact.
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Tech Industry Cybersecurity First Apple M5 memory exploit discovered using Anthropic AI, gives root access on MacOS — Claude Mythos helps security researchers bypass Memory Integrity Enforcement News By Bruno Ferreira published 16 May 2026 AI-assisted security research is producing exploits at a frightening rate. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Getty Images) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Thanks to AI-assisted security research, hackers with hats of various colors are finding exploits everywhere.
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