CVE-2024-6654 in Cyber Security
Summary
by MITRE • 09/27/2024
Products for macOS enables a user logged on to the system to perform a denial-of-service attack, which could be misused to disable the protection of the ESET security product and cause general system slow-down.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/01/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-6654 affects ESET security products running on macOS systems, presenting a significant security risk through its potential to enable unauthorized denial-of-service attacks. This flaw allows any user with system login credentials to exploit the ESET product's protective mechanisms, effectively undermining the security posture of systems that rely on ESET's threat detection and prevention capabilities. The vulnerability specifically targets the interaction between the ESET security product and the macOS operating system, creating an avenue for malicious actors or compromised users to disrupt normal system operations.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient access controls and privilege management within the ESET security product's macOS implementation. When a user logs into the system, they gain the ability to manipulate ESET's protection mechanisms in ways that were not intended by the product's design. This flaw likely involves improper validation of user privileges when executing security-related functions, allowing a local user to bypass normal protection protocols that should only be accessible to administrative or system-level processes. The vulnerability manifests through a lack of proper authentication checks when attempting to modify security settings or disable protection features, which represents a classic case of insufficient privilege separation.
The operational impact of CVE-2024-6654 extends beyond simple system slowdowns to encompass a complete compromise of endpoint security. When an attacker can disable ESET protection, they effectively remove a critical layer of defense that organizations rely upon to detect and prevent malware, ransomware, and other cyber threats. This vulnerability creates a pathway for attackers to establish persistent access to systems while evading detection mechanisms that ESET would normally provide. The resulting system degradation can manifest as reduced performance, application crashes, or complete system instability, depending on how extensively the security protections are disabled. Organizations using ESET products on macOS systems face increased risk of successful attacks, as their primary security solution becomes vulnerable to exploitation by any logged-in user.
The implications of this vulnerability align with CWE-284, which addresses improper access control in software systems, and can be mapped to ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service attacks and T1566.001 for social engineering attacks that could leverage this flaw. Security professionals should consider implementing additional monitoring and access control measures to detect unauthorized manipulation of security settings. Organizations should immediately apply available patches from ESET and conduct thorough security assessments of their macOS environments to identify any potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of proper privilege management in security software implementations and highlights the need for robust access control mechanisms to prevent local users from undermining system security protections.