Vulnerabilities > CVE-2020-9833 - Improper Initialization vulnerability in Apple mac OS X
Attack vector
LOCAL Attack complexity
LOW Privileges required
LOW Confidentiality impact
HIGH Integrity impact
NONE Availability impact
NONE Summary
A memory initialization issue was addressed with improved memory handling. This issue is fixed in macOS Catalina 10.15.5. A local user may be able to read kernel memory.
Vulnerable Configurations
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Leveraging Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring when multiple processes access and manipulate the same resource concurrently and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place. The attacker can leverage a race condition by "running the race", modifying the resource and modifying the normal execution flow. For instance a race condition can occur while accessing a file, the attacker can trick the system by replacing the original file with his version and cause the system to read the malicious file.
- Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring between the time of check (state) for a resource and the time of use of a resource. The typical example is the file access. The attacker can leverage a file access race condition by "running the race", meaning that he would modify the resource between the first time the target program accesses the file and the time the target program uses the file. During that period of time, the attacker could do something such as replace the file and cause an escalation of privilege.
Nessus
| NASL family | MacOS X Local Security Checks |
| NASL id | MACOS_HT211170.NASL |
| description | The remote host is running a version of macOS / Mac OS X that is 10.15.x prior to 10.15.5, 10.13.x prior to 10.13.6 Security Update 2020-003, 10.14.x prior to 10.14.6 Security Update 2020-003. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities: - In ksh version 20120801, a flaw was found in the way it evaluates certain environment variables. An attacker could use this flaw to override or bypass environment restrictions to execute shell commands. Services and applications that allow remote unauthenticated attackers to provide one of those environment variables could allow them to exploit this issue remotely. (CVE-2019-14868) - In Zsh before 5.8, attackers able to execute commands can regain privileges dropped by the --no-PRIVILEGED option. Zsh fails to overwrite the saved uid, so the original privileges can be restored by executing MODULE_PATH=/dir/with/module zmodload with a module that calls setuid(). (CVE-2019-20044) - An out-of-bounds read was addressed with improved input validation. This issue is fixed in iOS 13.3.1 and iPadOS 13.3.1, macOS Catalina 10.15.3, tvOS 13.3.1, watchOS 6.1.2. Processing a maliciously crafted image may lead to arbitrary code execution. (CVE-2020-3878) Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the operating system |
| last seen | 2020-06-12 |
| modified | 2020-05-28 |
| plugin id | 136930 |
| published | 2020-05-28 |
| reporter | This script is Copyright (C) 2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof. |
| source | https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/136930 |
| title | macOS 10.15.x < 10.15.5 / 10.14.x < 10.14.6 Security Update 2020-003 / 10.13.x < 10.13.6 Security Update 2020-003 |
| code | |