Apple prides itself on the security of its devices, but that doesnt mean theyre immune to malicious attacks. That point has just been proven by researchers who say theyve discovered a major new vulnerability in any Mac that runs on an Apple silicon chip, according to a report from Ars Technica. Worst of all, it looks like the problem is completely unpatchable.

So, whats the flaw? According to the researchers, it all comes down to components called data memory-dependent prefetchers (DMPs). Essentially, these predict what data is going to be needed next and preemptively retrieve it. The idea is that this saves on computing resources, but they leave a potential window open to attack.

If that opportunity is exploited, and attacker could steal a Macs encryption keys, even when theyre protected by cryptographic apps designed to keep them safe. That could potentially give a malicious actor wide-ranging access to whats stored on your Mac.

Related But unlike most modern vulnerabilities, the researchers say this one cannot be patched because it is inherent to the microarchitectural design of Apple silicon chips. There are steps that can be taken to mitigate it, but they might have a serious impact on the performance of the affected chips.

This is an issue affecting Apple silicon chips and, unfortunately, it seems that that means every Apple silicon chip generation. So, its not something you can avoid if you have the latest M3 MacBook Pro, for example.

The researchers dubbed the exploit GoFetch, and its not known if it has been used in the wild yet. Using the attack, the team was apparently able to extract a 2048-bit RSA key in under an hour, which is pretty fast.

According to the researchers, they first brought the flaw to Apples attention on December 5, 2023, and waited 107 days before making it public.

The only bright side is that this attack is unlikely to be used on regular Apple users. But thats not much comfort when we know theres very little Apple can do to banish the issue once and for all. Well have to see what if anything Apple is able to do to fix it and keep your Mac safe.