Meta patches Muse security flaw

Meta released a hotfix for its Muse macOS app after security researcher Patrick Wardle discovered a zero-day vulnerability that could let attackers take control of the AI agent.

How the exploit worked

The vulnerability exploited an undocumented Muse setting that let attackers redirect transcription processing from Meta's servers to their own, gaining access to the user's Muse account.

What attackers could do

Wardle's proof-of-concept attacks showed he could take pictures and write malicious files to disk through Muse without alerting the user, leveraging the AI agent's own privileges.

“We can manipulate the agent and leverage its privileges to do whatever we want.”

Design flaws enabled the attack

Muse processes dictation in the cloud instead of on-device, and allows any app to control all of its undocumented settings, both decisions that made the exploit possible.

Wardle's criticism of Meta

The researcher argues Meta should have prioritized security from the start of Muse's development rather than treating it as an afterthought following launch.

“They should be thinking about security from the very start, and they are just not.”

Meta downplays the real-world risk

Meta says the exploit required local access to a user's device and malicious code already running, making the practical risk quite low despite the vulnerability's severity.