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Two high-severity vulnerabilities in ClearanceKit on macOS allowed locally running processes to bypass the product’s opfilter file access enforcement and evade per-process authorization policies. CVE-2026-33631 affected the 4.1 branch and earlier because the Endpoint Security extension enforced policy only for ES_EVENT_TYPE_AUTH_OPEN and missed seven other file operation event types, while CVE-2026-33632 affected versions before 4.2.4 because ES_EVENT_TYPE_AUTH_EXCHANGEDATA and ES_EVENT_TYPE_AUTH_CLONE were not intercepted. Both flaws were classified as CWE-862 and could expose protected files to unauthorized local access or modification.
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4 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
A vulnerability later assigned CVE-2026-40604 was fixed in ClearanceKit 5.0.6 after it was found that any root process could suspend or terminate the opfilter Endpoint Security system extension with signals such as SIGSTOP, SIGKILL, or SIGTERM. When opfilter was interrupted, AUTH events timed out and defaulted to allow, silently disabling file-access policy enforcement.
Two high-severity local policy-bypass vulnerabilities in ClearanceKit on macOS were publicly disclosed: CVE-2026-33631 affecting the 4.1 branch and earlier, and CVE-2026-33632 affecting versions before 4.2.4. Both issues allowed local processes to circumvent per-process file access controls because opfilter failed to inspect certain Endpoint Security file operation events.
A separate flaw later assigned CVE-2026-33632 was patched in commit 6181c4a and released in ClearanceKit v4.2.4 after opfilter was found not to intercept AUTH_EXCHANGEDATA and AUTH_CLONE events. The update subscribed to both event types and sent them through the existing policy evaluator; users were advised to upgrade and reactivate the system extension.
A flaw later assigned CVE-2026-33631 was fixed in commit a3d1733 after developers found ClearanceKit's opfilter enforced file access policy only for AUTH_OPEN and missed seven other file operation event types. The fix added subscriptions for the missing events, routed them through the existing policy evaluator, and preserved XProtect change detection behavior for rename and unlink events.
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Researchers at XM Cyber disclosed a macOS privilege-escalation technique that allows a standard, non-administrative user to disable enterprise security software and invoke privileged functions without administrator credentials or kernel exploits. The attack chain abuses legitimate macOS behavior by combining weakly validated XPC connections, malicious payload injection into Interface Builder NIB files, and a newly described misuse of the kernel code-signing trust cache, which can continue trusting an application's `CDHash` after a legitimately signed app has run. XM Cyber said it successfully used the method to silently unload or permanently deactivate **CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor**, **Kandji MDM**, and a third unnamed EDR product without triggering alerts. Kandji addressed the issue in an updated agent release and assigned **`CVE-2026-39118`**, CrowdStrike reportedly paid a bug bounty and added detections while disclosure continues, and another vendor is developing a patch; XM Cyber also warned that Apple does not plan to remediate the underlying macOS design issue, leaving software vendors to implement their own mitigations.
Jun 29, 2026
Public proof-of-concept code has been released for three high-severity vulnerabilities in the open-source **File Browser** self-hosted file management application, including **`CVE-2026-73611`**, **`CVE-2026-73612`**, and **`CVE-2026-73613`**. The issues affect File Browser/File Server releases up to **2.63.21** in the broader advisory, while individual fixes were introduced in later versions, including **2.63.22** for the recursive-operations access-control flaw and **2.63.19** as unaffected for the symlink-based deletion issue. `CVE-2026-73612` allows authenticated users to bypass path-based access controls during recursive copy, rename, and delete operations, letting them manipulate restricted descendant files and directories. `CVE-2026-73613` enables arbitrary out-of-scope file deletion through symlink manipulation in the TUS upload cache eviction process, potentially deleting files outside an attacker’s authorized scope with only create permissions. Separately, `CVE-2026-73611` affects JWT-based proxy authentication and can allow expired tokens to be accepted and renewed under certain non-default logout configurations, creating an authentication and security-restrictions bypass risk. Organizations using File Browser have been urged to apply the latest vendor patches immediately.
Aug 14, 2026
A researcher disclosed a three-bug macOS local privilege escalation chain that let an unprivileged user escalate to **root**, bypass **System Integrity Protection (SIP)**, and ultimately achieve kernel code execution on systems before `macOS 10.15.5`. The first flaw was in `authd`, where Authorization Services trusted entitlement data returned by `SecCodeCopySigningInformation` without first validating the caller’s code signature, allowing forged entitlements such as `com.apple.private.AuthorizationServices` to unlock privileged authorization rights. The chain then abused Apple-signed package installation through **PackageKit** and a vulnerable post-install script in `macOSPublicBetaAccessUtility.pkg` to execute code as root under `system_installd`, inheriting the `com.apple.rootless.install.heritable` entitlement and bypassing SIP. A third flaw in `kextutil` used a race condition to swap a verified Apple-signed kernel extension staged in `/Library/StagedExtensions/private` before loading; use of the `-interactive` flag made the race reliable enough to load malicious kernel code. The bugs were reported to Apple in 2020, and Apple addressed the issues in `macOS 10.15.6` and `tvOS 13.4.5`, including a change so `SecCodeCopySigningInformation` verifies signatures directly.
Jul 24, 2026