Microsoft’s threat-intelligence unit has disclosed technical details of CVE-2025-31199, a macOS flaw it nicknamed “Sploitlight” after Apple’s Spotlight search tool. The vulnerability allowed specially crafted Spotlight plug-ins to bypass the operating system’s Transparency, Consent and Control safeguards, giving attackers the ability to siphon private files—including downloads, photo and video metadata, face-recognition tags and other Apple Intelligence cache data—without user approval. Microsoft said it privately reported the issue to Apple under a coordinated-disclosure process. Apple fixed the bug in security patches shipped on 31 March 2025 for macOS Sequoia (version 15.4) and related operating systems. The companies said they have no evidence the exploit was used in the wild but urged users who have not yet updated older systems to install the latest patches. The episode underscores rising cross-platform security collaboration as Apple broadens AI features on Macs. Microsoft has added detections for the exploit to Defender for Endpoint, while researchers warn that users running unpatched versions remain vulnerable to data theft if malicious applications deploy rogue Spotlight importers.