Apple Bypasses Firewall for Its Apps

Apparently Apple figures it knows best. Which is not a big surprise for the the folks in Cupertino.

In the Big Sur version of macOS, Apple allows many of its own apps to bypass both firewalls and VPN connections, potentially giving Apple a way to spy on folks (because traffic filtering does not apply to them) and also, potentially, giving hackers a way to piggyback on Apple traffic – a proof of concept of which has already been demonstrated.

I have never been a fan of software based, on-system firewalls like this, just for this reason. I only approve of robust network based firewalls which are independent of the systems they protect. High quality network “hardware” firewalls are so inexpensive these days that there really is no reason not to use them. It would a lot harder for Apple to create a back door for its favorite apps if you used network firewalls instead.

For more details read the article in The Hacker News.