[palmer]

starts with a local root privilege exploit

Using a root privilege exploit means that the victim is running at normal priveleges. The exploit bumps the software up to the root level. The vcitim is not running at root, as you say, nobody does. But it's not impossible to find exploits to get from normal privileges to root, it just adds one more complication to the attack and one more chance for it to fail...

[Flick Lives]

Using a root privilege exploit means that the victim is running at normal priveleges. The exploit bumps the software up to the root level.

By default, the root user account on OS X is disabled. You would first have to manually enable it and assign a password.

[Swordmaker]

Using a root privilege exploit means that the victim is running at normal priveleges. The exploit bumps the software up to the root level. The vcitim is not running at root, as you say, nobody does. But it's not impossible to find exploits to get from normal privileges to root, it just adds one more complication to the attack and one more chance for it to fail...

The claim was this was a "remote" attack. . .,It is not except in the sense that it can be exported with a device in which case the new machines are toast. But if it requires being downloaded by someone with high privileges who gives it permission to install and run, that doesn't qualify it as being "remote."