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CVE-2019-8565 is a local privilege escalation vulnerability in Apple’s privileged XPC service associated with Feedback Assistant. The flaw is a race condition in client authorization logic: the service validates the connecting client using a process identifier rather than a stable, non-racy identity primitive. Because the authorization decision is tied to PID-based checks, an unprivileged local process can exploit PID reuse during IPC handling and cause the daemon to treat attacker-controlled requests as if they originated from the trusted Feedback Assistant client. After bypassing the XPC authorization boundary, the attacker can invoke privileged daemon methods that were intended only for the trusted client. Available functionality included privileged file-copy operations with insufficiently enforced path constraints, enabling path traversal to escape intended source and destination restrictions. The resulting primitive can be chained with diagnostic helper behaviors to achieve execution of attacker-controlled code with root privileges. Apple fixed the issue with additional validation in iOS 12.2 and macOS Mojave 10.14.4.
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1 valid exploit after Mallory filtered fakes, detection scripts, and README-only repos.
This repository contains a single Metasploit module (modules/exploits/osx/local/feedback_assistant_root.rb) that exploits a race condition vulnerability (CVE-2019-8565) in the Feedback Assistant on macOS systems prior to version 10.14.4. The exploit is local and requires an existing session on the target system with user privileges. The module checks the macOS version, ensures the session is not already root, and verifies that a writable directory (default: /tmp) is available. It then crafts a payload (which can be a native Mach-O binary, Python, or shell command) and injects it into a template exploit binary. This binary is uploaded to the target and executed, resulting in code execution as root. The module is weaponized, allowing for customizable payloads and automated cleanup. The only fingerprintable endpoints are the writable directory used for file drops and the path to the exploit binary template. The structure is typical for a Metasploit local privilege escalation module, with clear separation of initialization, checking, and exploitation logic.
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A race condition in the macOS Feedback Assistant's privileged XPC service (com.apple.appleseed.fbahelperd) allows an unprivileged user to bypass security checks based on process ID, leading to local privilege escalation to root. The vulnerability is due to improper validation of client identity, which can be exploited via PID reuse attacks and path traversal, allowing arbitrary file copy and permission manipulation.
A local privilege escalation vulnerability in Apple's privileged XPC service com.apple.appleseed.fbahelperd that relies on PID-based client validation vulnerable to PID reuse races, enabling bypass of authorization checks and abuse of file-copy functionality for sandbox escape or root escalation.
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