Apple macOS up to 14.7/15.6/26.2 App path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in Apple macOS up to 14.7/15.6/26.2. This affects an unknown part of the component App. Performing a manipulation results in path traversal. This vulnerability is cataloged as CVE-2026-20614. The attack must be initiated from a local position. There is no exploit available. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Apple macOS up to 14.7/15.6/26.2. This affects an unknown code of the component App. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-22. The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A path handling issue was addressed with improved validation. This issue is fixed in macOS Sequoia 15.7.4, macOS Tahoe 26.3, macOS Sonoma 14.8.4. An app may be able to gain root privileges.

It is possible to read the advisory at support.apple.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-20614 since 11/11/2025. The exploitability is told to be easy. Attacking locally is a requirement. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 02/26/2026). The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1006 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 298694 (macOS 26.x < 26.3 Multiple Vulnerabilities (126348)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 14.8, 15.7 or 26.3 eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (298694). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Apple

Name

• macOS

Version

• 14.0
• 14.1
• 14.2
• 14.3
• 14.4
• 14.5
• 14.6
• 14.7
• 15.0
• 15.1
• 15.2
• 15.3
• 15.4
• 15.5
• 15.6
• 26.0
• 26.1
• 26.2

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.apple.com/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

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