VulnerabilityDeferred

CVE-2026-24068

The implementation of the "shouldAcceptNewConnection" function, which is used by the NSXPC framework to validate if a client should be allowed to connect to the XPC listener, does not validate clients at all.

HIGH 8.8EPSS 0.45%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.45%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

The VSL privileged helper does utilize NSXPC for IPC. The implementation of the "shouldAcceptNewConnection" function, which is used by the NSXPC framework to validate if a client should be allowed to connect to the XPC listener, does not validate clients at all. This means that any process can connect to this service using the configured protocol. A malicious process is able to call all the functions defined in the corresponding HelperToolProtocol. No validation is performed in the functions "writeReceiptFile" and “runUninstaller” of the HelperToolProtocol. This allows an attacker to write files to any location with any data as well as execute any file with any arguments. Any process can call these functions because of the missing XPC client validation described before. The abuse of the missing endpoint validation leads to privilege escalation.

CVSS 3.1: 8.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS: 0.45% probability · 38th percentile
CISA KEV: Not listed
Weakness: CWE-306
Source: 551230f0-3615-47bd-b7cc-93e92e730bbf

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.