CVE-2025-65842

The Aquarius HelperTool (1.0.003) privileged XPC service on macOS contains multiple flaws that allow local privilege escalation

Medium · published December 3, 2025

CVSS v3.1
5.1
EPSS
0%
Percentile
5.6
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

The Aquarius HelperTool (1.0.003) privileged XPC service on macOS contains multiple flaws that allow local privilege escalation. The service accepts XPC connections from any local process without validating the client's identity, and its authorization logic incorrectly calls AuthorizationCopyRights with a NULL reference, causing all authorization checks to succeed. The executeCommand:authorization:withReply: method then interpolates attacker-controlled input into NSTask and executes it with root privileges. A local attacker can exploit these weaknesses to run arbitrary commands as root, create persistent backdoors, or obtain a fully interactive root shell.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
5.1 · MEDIUM
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00167 · 5.6th percentile
Published
2025-12-03T00:00Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 03 DEC 00:00Z
    The Aquarius HelperTool (1.0.003) privileged XPC service on macOS contains multiple flaws that allow local privilege escalation
    cvelistv5