CVE-2024-55968
Published: 28 January 2025
Summary
CVE-2024-55968 is a high-severity Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions (CWE-267) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 8.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 6.6% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-25 (Reference Monitor) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2024-55968 affects DTEX DEC-M (DTEX Forwarder) version 6.1.1 on macOS. The com.dtexsystems.helper service, which handles privileged operations inside the DTEX Event Forwarder agent, performs no validation of connecting clients during XPC interprocess communication. It neither checks code signing requirements, entitlements, security flags, nor client version before accepting connections to the DTConnectionHelperProtocol interface.
An attacker with local access and the ability to launch an XPC client can therefore invoke the submitQuery method without authorization. Successful exploitation grants the caller root privileges by abusing the helper's privileged operations.
Public references consist of two GitHub repositories that document the missing validation and provide proof-of-concept code for establishing an unauthorized connection.
The EPSS score rose from a low baseline to a recorded peak of 0.1358 before settling at the current value of 0.1048, indicating measurable post-disclosure interest in the issue.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-52868
Vulnerability details
An issue was discovered in DTEX DEC-M (DTEX Forwarder) 6.1.1. The com.dtexsystems.helper service, responsible for handling privileged operations within the macOS DTEX Event Forwarder agent, fails to implement critical client validation during XPC interprocess communication (IPC). Specifically, the service does…
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not verify the code requirements, entitlements, security flags, or version of any client attempting to establish a connection. This lack of proper logic validation allows malicious actors to exploit the service's methods via unauthorized client connections, and escalate privileges to root by abusing the DTConnectionHelperProtocol protocol's submitQuery method over an unauthorized XPC connection.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Direct local privilege escalation via unauthenticated XPC service abuse in privileged helper.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
AC-3 requires enforcement of approved authorizations for access to resources, directly countering the service's failure to validate XPC clients, code requirements, entitlements, or versions.
AC-25 mandates a reference monitor mechanism to mediate all accesses verifiably, addressing the lack of comprehensive client validation in the privileged com.dtexsystems.helper service.
AC-6 enforces least privilege for accounts and functions, limiting the impact of privilege escalation via unauthorized XPC connections to the root submitQuery method.