Security Resilience

CVE-2023-41979

Race Condition in Apple Macos ≤ 14.0

Published
27 September 2023
Modified
04 November 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 4.7
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0022 11th percentile
Risk Priority 36 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-41979 is a medium-severity Race Condition (CWE-362) vulnerability in Apple Macos. Its CVSS base score is 4.7 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 11th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

A race condition was addressed with improved locking. This issue is fixed in macOS Sonoma 14. An app may be able to modify protected parts of the file system.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-42959Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43292Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2026-28891Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2026-43728Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43275Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2024-40849Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2026-28817Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2026-28924Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43244Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43420Same product: Apple Macos

Affected Assets

apple
macos
≤ 14.0

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-362

Accurate timestamps from internal clocks enable detection of race conditions by providing reliable event ordering in audit logs.

addresses: CWE-362

Coordination of concurrent security activities reduces the probability that shared resources will be accessed simultaneously without proper synchronization.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

blocks

A.8.25 mandates secure SDLC practices (secure coding guidelines, security requirements, checkpoints, testing including code scans/penetration tests, developer training) that reach race conditions in concurrent code, but only as one slice of a broad requirement whose implementation scope and rigour are left to the organisation.

blocks

A.8.26 explicitly lists resilience against malicious attacks including SQL injections and input validation as application security requirements to identify/address; race conditions are a similar class of timing-based concurrency flaw that can be mitigated by requirements for proper synchronization/locking, but this is only one slice of the broad CWE-362 class (most instances arise in low-level shared-memory or TOCTOU scenarios not named here).

blocks

Secure architecture principles require proper synchronization and resource isolation, addressing the root cause of CWE-362.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe concurrent access patterns and mandate atomic operations or locks.

finds

Security testing can detect race conditions, but does not prevent them at design or coding time.

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-362, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.

References