CVE-2025-43261
Published: 30 July 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-43261 is a critical-severity Protection Mechanism Failure (CWE-693) 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 in the top 22.8% 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 SC-39 (Process Isolation).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-43261 is a logic issue addressed through improved checks in Apple's macOS operating system. It affects macOS Sequoia versions prior to 15.6, macOS Sonoma prior to 14.7.7, and macOS Ventura prior to 13.7.7. The vulnerability enables an app to break out of its sandbox, as documented under CWE-693, with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 indicating critical severity.
The attack vector is network-based (AV:N) with low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring no privileges (PR:N) or user interaction (UI:N), and unchanged impact scope (S:U). A remote attacker can exploit this flaw to allow an app to escape its sandboxed environment, potentially achieving high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H).
Apple's security advisories, including support documents at https://support.apple.com/en-us/124149, https://support.apple.com/en-us/124150, and https://support.apple.com/en-us/124151, confirm the issue is fixed in macOS Sequoia 15.6, macOS Sonoma 14.7.7, and macOS Ventura 13.7.7. Additional details appear in Full Disclosure mailing list posts at http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/Jul/32 and http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/Jul/33. Security practitioners should prioritize patching affected systems to mitigate sandbox escape risks.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-23051
Vulnerability details
A logic issue was addressed with improved checks. This issue is fixed in macOS Sequoia 15.6, macOS Sonoma 14.7.7, macOS Ventura 13.7.7. An app may be able to break out of its sandbox.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Sandbox escape via logic flaw directly enables exploitation for privilege escalation (T1068) with no auth or interaction required.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Implements a tamper-proof reference monitor that mediates all sandbox access attempts, directly preventing apps from exploiting logic flaws to escape sandbox boundaries.
Maintains separate execution domains for processes, enforcing sandbox isolation to block breakout attempts via improved logic checks.
Requires timely flaw remediation through patching macOS to versions with fixed sandbox logic, directly mitigating the CVE exploitation.