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CVE-2023-38609 is an injection vulnerability in macOS Ventura prior to version 13.5. The flaw allowed a malicious application to bypass certain Privacy preferences, likely by exploiting insufficient input validation in the affected component. The vulnerability was addressed by Apple through improved input validation.
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This repository is a local privilege escalation (LPE) exploit targeting macOS Ventura, chaining two vulnerabilities: MacDirtyCow (CVE-2022-46689) and a package installer bug (CVE-2023-38609). The exploit is implemented in C, with supporting bash payloads. The main entry point is 'main.c', which orchestrates the attack in several stages: 1. Checks OS compatibility and required privilege level. 2. Unpacks a malicious Apple-signed package embedded in the binary. 3. If running as a user, uses the MacDirtyCow bug to overwrite '/etc/pam.d/sudo' with a permissive configuration, allowing passwordless sudo. 4. Writes a payload script ('/tmp/payload.sh') and a launcher script ('/tmp/launcher.sh'). 5. The launcher invokes the installer with manipulated environment variables, exploiting the package installer bug to execute the payload with SIP privileges. 6. The payload script creates a status file, cleans up artifacts, and opens a Terminal with SIP privileges. 7. If the PAM file was overwritten, it is restored to its original state after exploitation. The exploit is operational and provides a working local privilege escalation path from user to root, and from root to SIP prompt, on vulnerable macOS Ventura versions. The codebase is well-structured, with clear separation of logic for PAM manipulation, payload handling, package unpacking, and the MacDirtyCow exploit. The main fingerprintable endpoints are the system files and temporary scripts it creates or modifies during exploitation.
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