Apple Shares Private Cloud Compute Virtual Research Environment, Provides Bounties for Vulnerabilities

Private Cloud Compute is a cloud intelligence system that Apple designed for private artificial intelligence processing, and it's what Apple is using to keep Apple Intelligence requests secure when they need to be processed in the cloud.

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Apple promised to allow security and privacy researchers to verify the end-to-end security and privacy promises that Apple made with Private Cloud Compute, and today, Apple made its Private Cloud Compute Virtual Research Environment (VRE) and other materials publicly available to all security researchers.

Apple has a Private Cloud Compute (PCC) Security Guide that details all of the components of PCC and how they work to provide privacy for cloud-based AI processing. Apple released the source code for select components of PCC that help implement its security and privacy requirements, which allows for a deeper dive into PCC.

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The Virtual Research Environment is a set of tools that lets researchers perform their own security analysis on PCC using a Mac. The VRE can be used for inspecting PCC software releases, verifying the consistency of the transparency log, booting a release in a virtualized environment, and modifying and debugging PCC software for deeper investigation. The VRE can be accessed in the macOS 18.1 Developer Preview and can be used with a Mac that has an Apple silicon chip and 16GB+ unified memory.

Along with these tools, Apple is expanding its Apple Security Bounty to include rewards for vulnerabilities that demonstrate a compromise of the fundamental privacy and security guarantees of Private Cloud Compute. Security researchers who locate a vulnerability can earn up to $1 million.

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Top Rated Comments

UpsideDownEclair Avatar
2 weeks ago

From a security perspective, the only way to 100% prove transparency is having an outside firm perform and publish an audit on their internal servers.

Which will never happen




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Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ProbablyDylan Avatar
2 weeks ago

I'm talking about what Apple does with your data. There's nothing stopping them from having code we can't see that collects data from users.
Image pulled directly from Apple's documentation, and a link to where I found it ('https://security.apple.com/documentation/private-cloud-compute').

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ProbablyDylan Avatar
2 weeks ago

If you have proof that's true, let's see it. In comparison to Proton, they have had outsourced firms inspect their servers to verify they're statement of end-to-end encryption is true. Apple has done 0 outsourced audits of their servers.
Right. That's because none of this stuff is ready to go yet. Proton's products are ready to inspect. Apple's aren't. You don't check the doneness of a steak before it hits the grill do you?

You don't have to hear it from me though. You're welcome to read Apple's documentations and promises at that link I provided, but I get the feeling that you're more interested in being skeptical than in being informed.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bergert Avatar
2 weeks ago

If you have proof that's true, let's see it. In comparison to Proton, they have had outsourced firms inspect their servers to verify they're statement of end-to-end encryption is true. Apple has done 0 outsourced audits of their servers.
This is quite better, anyone can verify the claims - virtual server Mseries with 16GB is needed: MacStudio will do. Run it yourself.

This is quite a bold step, now iCloud next please.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Timpetus Avatar
2 weeks ago
Somehow I doubt there is a macOS 18.1 Developer Preview yet...
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
2 weeks ago
I'm always curious how many of these bounties are actually collected? One time I sent an iPad OS Lock Screen bypass vulnerability to Apple and nobody ever responded. Feel like that should've been worth something. For how huge some of these vulnerabilities would impact their public image if they were released, you would think Apple would be interested in paying more for them.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)