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Improper Authentication

CVE-2018-9105

High
8.8/10

Summary

NordVPN 3.3.10 for macOS suffers from a root privilege escalation vulnerability. The vulnerability stems from its privileged helper tool's implemented XPC service. This XPC service is responsible for receiving and processing new OpenVPN connection requests from the main application. Unfortunately this XPC service is not protected, which allows arbitrary applications to connect and send it XPC messages. An attacker can send a crafted XPC message to the privileged helper tool requesting it make a new OpenVPN connection. Because he or she controls the contents of the XPC message, the attacker can specify the location of the openvpn executable, which could point to something malicious they control located on disk. Without validation of the openvpn executable, this will give the attacker code execution in the context of the privileged helper tool.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • HIGH
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • LOW
  • HIGH
  • HIGH

CWE-287 - Improper Authentication

Improper (or broken) authentication attacks are widespread, and have accounted for many of the worst data breaches in recent years. Improper authentication attacks are a class of vulnerabilities where an attacker impersonates a legitimate user by exploiting weaknesses in either session management or credential management to gain access to the user’s account. This can result in disclosure of sensitive information, and can lead to system compromise, theft, identity theft, and fraud.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published