CVE-2015-1138 in MacOS X
Summary
by MITRE
Hypervisor in Apple OS X before 10.10.3 allows local users to cause a denial of service via unspecified vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/30/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2015-1138 represents a critical flaw within the hypervisor component of Apple's operating system, specifically affecting versions prior to macOS 10.10.3. This issue resides in the virtualization infrastructure that Apple employs to manage hardware resources and isolate virtual machine environments. The hypervisor serves as a fundamental layer that enables features such as virtualization support, sandboxing, and containerization within the macOS ecosystem, making it a prime target for attackers seeking to disrupt system operations.
The technical nature of this vulnerability manifests through unspecified vectors that allow local users to trigger a denial of service condition within the hypervisor subsystem. While the exact implementation details remain undisclosed, such vulnerabilities typically exploit memory management issues, privilege escalation pathways, or resource exhaustion conditions that can cause the hypervisor to crash or become unresponsive. The unspecified nature of the vectors suggests that multiple attack surfaces within the hypervisor implementation may be susceptible to exploitation, potentially including improper input validation, buffer overflows, or race conditions in hypervisor code execution.
The operational impact of CVE-2015-1138 extends beyond simple service disruption, as it can effectively compromise the stability and reliability of virtualized environments within macOS. Local attackers who successfully exploit this vulnerability can cause the hypervisor to become unresponsive, potentially leading to complete system hangs or forced reboots that disrupt user productivity and system availability. This type of denial of service attack is particularly concerning in enterprise environments where macOS systems may be running virtualized applications or services that depend on stable hypervisor functionality. The vulnerability can also potentially affect the integrity of virtual machine isolation, creating risks for multi-tenant environments or systems running sensitive workloads.
Security practitioners should recognize this vulnerability as a potential entry point for more sophisticated attacks, as hypervisor-level issues often provide attackers with opportunities to escalate privileges or bypass security controls. The Common Weakness Enumeration categorizes such issues under weakness types related to virtualization security and hypervisor implementation flaws, while the MITRE ATT&CK framework would classify this under privilege escalation and defense evasion techniques. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including updating to macOS 10.10.3 or later versions, monitoring for suspicious system behavior, and ensuring proper access controls to prevent unauthorized local users from exploiting this vulnerability. Additionally, system administrators should consider implementing network segmentation and monitoring solutions to detect potential exploitation attempts and maintain comprehensive audit logs for forensic analysis.