I'm still getting the "AMPDevicesAgent wants to use your confidential information stored in iOS backup in your keychain" messages. So I chatted to Apple Support for 3/4 of an hour. The Agent was actually very good and checked up on all sorts of things. I shared screenshots of the message and Activity Monitor info for AMPDevicesAgent and AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent. Here are some pertinant excerpts from the conversation;
Agent;
"I checked on my lab machine (Which never has any 3rd Party Apps) which I upgraded from 10.14 and was able to locate AMPDevicesAgent. This confirm the behavior is expected."
This is useful as it confirms that AMPDevicesAgent is not 3rd party software but is included with Catalina.
Agent;
"AMPDevicesAgent is something new with Catalina. As seen in Activity monitor it shows as an Apple process and I have checked with my lab device to confirm this as well."
Following this the Agent recommended that I ran a Malwarebytes scan. This completed with no problems found.
Agent;
"This is something with Catalina so other persons may have this pop up but I can guarantee this is not a cause for concern."
I asked what would not work if I continued to Deny the access request
"Honestly, I am not aware if anything will stop working if you hit deny."
I was still concerned that we did not know what AMPDevicesAgent actually is, so I was passed over to a supervisor. I explained;
- I am getting the AMPDevices pop up and it is asking for access to my keychain. I have no idea what AMPDevicesAgent is or why it needs access to my keychain.
- It a bit like giving your bank account details to somebody you just met on the street.
- All other things that ask for access tell you who they are e.g Malwarebytes asked for access to my desktop. Its a malware scanner so that is reasonable. But what is AMPDevices?
The answer to this was
"It’s actually part of the Frameworks in you Library folder for the iOS Device that is installed with Catalina, so that would be expected behavior and there is nothing to worry about by accepting it."
So I asked
"OK. Can you please pass a message back to the development team that allowing something called AMPdDeviceAgent to ask for access to the keychain is not good practice. It causes the end user to worry and hence waste lots of time researching the issue and then contacting Apple Support."
Supervisor response;
"Sure can. You can also voice your concern about this at apple.com/feedback. We have a dedicated team here at Apple whose entire job is to review this feedback and implement any changes needed."
Conclusion
AMPDevicesAgent seems to be part of the new Catalina functionality that allows Finder to sync and backup with iOS & iPadOS devices. It looks like either the access rights for it haven't been properly fixed or somebody didn't give it a user friendly name.
As a result of this conversation with Support, I'm going to Allow access.
I suggest that we all input to apple.com/feedback saying that a window popping up to say that AMPDevicesAgent needs access to the keychain is not very User friendly. Either its access rights should be fixed so it doesn't need to ask or it should be renamed something the User can understand.
