A vulnerability was found in PrivateVPN 2.0.31 on MacOS. It has been declared as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the file /Applications/PrivateVPN.app/Contents/Resources of the component Helper Tool. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a access control vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-264. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

** DISPUTED ** PrivateVPN 2.0.31 for macOS suffers from a root privilege escalation vulnerability. The software installs a privileged helper tool that runs as the root user. This privileged helper tool is installed as a LaunchDaemon and implements an XPC service. The XPC service is responsible for handling new VPN connection operations via the main PrivateVPN application. The privileged helper tool creates new VPN connections by executing the openvpn binary located in the /Applications/PrivateVPN.app/Contents/Resources directory. The openvpn binary can be overwritten by the default user, which allows an attacker that has already installed malicious software as the default user to replace the binary. When a new VPN connection is established, the privileged helper tool will launch this malicious binary, thus allowing an attacker to execute code as the root user. NOTE: the vendor has reportedly indicated that this behavior is "an acceptable part of their software."

The weakness was published 02/21/2018 (Website). It is possible to read the advisory at gist.github.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2018-7311 since 02/21/2018. Attacking locally is a requirement. The successful exploitation needs a single authentication. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1068 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

The real existence of this vulnerability is still doubted at the moment.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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• PrivateVPN

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• 2.0.31

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