CVE-2026-12374 PUBLISHED

Improper XPC caller certificate validation and TOCTOU race condition in macOS PrivilegedHelperTool

Assigner: Cato
Reserved: 16.06.2026 Published: 01.07.2026 Updated: 01.07.2026

Improper certificate validation and a time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition in the PrivilegedHelperTool XPC service in Cato Client before v.5.13.1 on macOS allows a local authenticated attacker to escalate privileges to root via a self-signed certificate that bypasses the XPC caller verification and a symlink swap during package installation.

Metrics

CVSS 4.0

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P/AU:Y/R:U/V:C/RE:L/U:Amber
CVSS Score: 6.4

Exploitability Metrics		Vulnerable System Impact Metrics		Subsequent System Impact Metrics
Attack Vector	Local	Confidentiality	High	Confidentiality	None
Attack Complexity	Low	Integrity	High	Integrity	None
Attack Requirements	Present	Availability	High	Availability	None
Privileges Required	Low
User Interaction	None

CVSS 4.0

Product Status

Vendor	Cato Networks
Product	SDP Client
Versions	Default: unaffected affected from 5.12.0 to 5.13.1 (excl.)

References

https://support.catonetworks.com/hc/en-us/articles/37284626576413-Security-Vulnerability-CVE-2026-12374-that-Impacts-macOS-Client-Versions-Lower-than-5-13-1

Problem Types

CWE-295 Improper certificate validation CWE
CWE-367 Time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition CWE

Impacts

CAPEC-233 Privilege Escalation