CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-7716 — PrivateVPN 2.0.31 for macOS suffers from a root privilege escalation vulnerability with its com.privat.vpn.helper privileged helper tool

Critical CVSS 9.8

PrivateVPN 2.0.31 for macOS suffers from a root privilege escalation vulnerability with its com.privat.vpn.helper privileged helper tool. This privileged helper tool implements an XPC service that allows arbitrary installed applications to connect and send messages. The XPC service extracts the config string from the corresponding XPC message. This string is supposed to point to an internal OpenVPN configuration file. If a new connection has not already been established, an attacker can send the XPC service a malicious XPC message with the config string pointing at an OpenVPN configuration file that he or she controls. In the configuration file, an attacker can specify a dynamic library plugin that should run for every new VPN connection. This plugin will execute code in the context of the root user.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.0)
Published
2018-03-05
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application

Affected products

  • privatevpn / privatevpn / 2.0.31

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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