module

macOS cfprefsd Arbitrary File Write Local Privilege Escalation

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Disclosed
2020-03-18
Created
2020-09-05

Description

This module exploits an arbitrary file write in cfprefsd on macOS order to run a payload as root. The CFPreferencesSetAppValue function, which is
reachable from most unsandboxed processes, can be exploited with a race condition
in order to overwrite an arbitrary file as root. By overwriting /etc/pam.d/login
a user can then login as root with the `login root` command without a password.

Authors

Yonghwi Jin jinmoteam@gmail.com
Jungwon Lim setuid0@protonmail.com
Insu Yun insu@gatech.edu
Taesoo Kim taesoo@gatech.edu
timwr

Platform

OSX

Architectures

x64

References

Module Options

To display the available options, load the module within the Metasploit console and run the commands ‘show options’ or ‘show advanced’:


    msf > use exploit/osx/local/cfprefsd_race_condition
    msf exploit(cfprefsd_race_condition) > show targets
        ...targets...
    msf exploit(cfprefsd_race_condition) > set TARGET < target-id >
    msf exploit(cfprefsd_race_condition) > show options
        ...show and set options...
    msf exploit(cfprefsd_race_condition) > exploit
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