moonD4rk/HackBrowserData · error

failed to find securityd pid: %w

Error message

failed to find securityd pid: %w

What it means

DecryptKeychainRecords wraps any failure from findProcessByName with "failed to find securityd pid: %w". This means the root check passed but the process table scan could not yield a valid root-owned securityd PID, so the memory-dump pipeline cannot start.

Source

Thrown at masterkey/gcoredump_darwin.go:72

	}
	return 0, fmt.Errorf("securityd process not found")
}

type addressRange struct {
	start uint64
	end   uint64
}

// DecryptKeychainRecords dumps securityd memory, scans for the keychain master key, and uses it to
// read login.keychain-db's generic password records. Requires root.
func DecryptKeychainRecords() ([]keychainbreaker.GenericPassword, error) {
	if os.Geteuid() != 0 {
		return nil, errors.New("requires root privileges")
	}

	pid, err := findProcessByName("securityd", true)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to find securityd pid: %w", err)
	}

	// gcore appends ".PID" to the -o prefix, e.g. prefix.123
	corePrefix := filepath.Join(os.TempDir(), fmt.Sprintf("securityd-core-%d", time.Now().UnixNano()))
	corePath := fmt.Sprintf("%s.%d", corePrefix, pid)
	defer os.Remove(corePath)

	cmd := exec.Command("gcore", "-d", "-s", "-v", "-o", corePrefix, strconv.Itoa(pid))
	if err := cmd.Run(); err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to dump securityd memory: %w", err)
	}

	// vmmap identifies MALLOC_SMALL heap regions where securityd stores keys
	regions, err := findMallocSmallRegions(pid)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to find malloc small regions: %w", err)
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 0503d04d7a)

Solutions

1. Inspect the wrapped cause: unwrap the %w chain to see if it is "securityd process not found" vs "sysctl kern.proc.all failed".
2. Confirm securityd is running as root: `ps -U root | grep securityd`.
3. Re-run on a standard macOS host, not in a container or restricted environment.
4. If sysctl fails, check SIP/hardening state (`csrutil status`) and kernel restrictions on kern.proc.all.
5. Ensure the tool runs with euid 0 (sudo) so the root-only process enumeration path behaves as expected.

if os.Geteuid() != 0 {
    return fmt.Errorf("must run as root")
}
out, _ := exec.Command("pgrep", "-U", "0", "securityd").Output()
if len(out) == 0 {
    return fmt.Errorf("no root-owned securityd process found")
}

records, err := masterkey.DecryptKeychainRecords()
var target *fmt.WrapError // or use errors.Unwrap loop
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed to find securityd pid") {
        log.Fatalf("cannot locate securityd: %v", err)
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling DecryptKeychainRecords as root on macOS when findProcessByName("securityd", true) fails — either the sysctl kern.proc.all call errors, the returned buffer length is invalid, or no matching root-owned process exists.

Common situations: Running on macOS with hardened SIP settings that block kern.proc.all; running inside a VM/container lacking securityd; a non-standard macOS setup where securityd is renamed; unwrapping with errors.Is/As to see the underlying "securityd process not found" or sysctl failure.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• securityd process not found
• requires root privileges
• keychain gcore dump not built in (rebuild with -tags keychai
• not found in credential store
• sysctl kern.proc.all failed: %w

AI-assisted analysis of moonD4rk/HackBrowserData@0503d04d7a (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/faaaed0475b463f6. Report an issue: GitHub.