CVE-2025-31255
Published: 15 September 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-31255 is a critical-severity Improper Authorization (CWE-285) vulnerability in Apple Macos. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 28.4th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Enforces approved authorizations for access to sensitive data, directly addressing the improper state management that allowed unauthorized app access.
Requires timely identification, reporting, and correction of flaws like this authorization vulnerability via patching to fixed OS versions.
Employs least privilege to restrict apps to only necessary accesses, mitigating unauthorized elevation to sensitive user data.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Authorization bypass via improper state management directly enables remote exploitation (T1190) and privilege escalation to access restricted sensitive data (T1068).
NVD Description
An authorization issue was addressed with improved state management. This issue is fixed in iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, macOS Sequoia 15.7, macOS Sonoma 14.8, macOS Tahoe 26, tvOS 26, watchOS 26. An app may be able to access sensitive…
more
user data.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2025-31255 is an authorization vulnerability stemming from improper state management, classified under CWE-285 (Improper Authorization). It affects Apple's operating systems, including versions of iOS and iPadOS prior to 26, macOS Sequoia prior to 15.7, macOS Sonoma prior to 14.8, macOS Tahoe prior to 26, tvOS prior to 26, and watchOS prior to 26. The issue enables an app to access sensitive user data it should not be able to reach, earning a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (Critical) due to its network accessibility, low attack complexity, lack of required privileges or user interaction, and high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
A remote, unauthenticated attacker (PR:N) can exploit this vulnerability over the network (AV:N) with low complexity (AC:L) and no user interaction (UI:N), potentially by leveraging a malicious app. Successful exploitation allows the app to bypass authorization controls and access sensitive user data, resulting in high confidentiality loss (C:H), as well as high integrity (I:H) and availability (A:H) impacts per the CVSS vector.
Apple's security advisories detail the fix through improved state management, addressed in the following updates: iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, macOS Sequoia 15.7, macOS Sonoma 14.8, macOS Tahoe 26, tvOS 26, and watchOS 26. Practitioners should prioritize updating affected devices; further details are available in Apple's support documents at https://support.apple.com/en-us/125108, https://support.apple.com/en-us/125110, https://support.apple.com/en-us/125111, https://support.apple.com/en-us/125112, and https://support.apple.com/en-us/125114.
Details
- CWE(s)