Security Resilience

CVE-2026-20632

Apple Macos 26.0 – 26.4

Published
25 March 2026
Modified
25 March 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0031 23th percentile
Risk Priority 43 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-2026-20632 is a medium-severity Improper Access Control (CWE-284) vulnerability in Apple Macos. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 23th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

A parsing issue in the handling of directory paths was addressed with improved path validation. This issue is fixed in macOS Tahoe 26.4. An app may be able to access sensitive user data.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-30462Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43477Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2024-23238Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43270Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2024-40858Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-24259Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43198Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43294Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2024-44219Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43499Same product: Apple Macos

Affected Assets

apple
macos
26.0 — 26.4

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Directly enforces approved authorizations for logical access, stopping unauthorized actors from reaching resources.

Enforces flow-control policies that restrict information movement between subjects and objects.

Documents duties and assigns access so that no single account can bypass intended restrictions.

Limits each account to the minimum privileges needed, reducing the chance of unauthorized access.

Defines account types, assigns/removes access, and reviews accounts to ensure only authorized actors can reach resources.

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.5.15 directly mandates determining requirements, defining/implementing topic-specific access control policy+rules (with explicit references to 8.3, 5.16, 5.18), and enforcing authorized access while preventing unauthorized access, which squarely stops exploitation of most CWE-284 instances; the bounded remainder is the physical slice (explicitly delegated to 7.2-7.4) plus any second-order defects like path traversal that are not authorization decisions.

blocks

A.5.16's identity lifecycle (unique binding, timely disable/remove, no duplicates, oversight of shared/non-human) directly stops most improper access by ensuring the actor in an access decision is correctly identified and authorized; the bounded remainder is non-identity mechanisms in CWE-284 such as path traversal or CSRF that do not turn on actor identity at all.

blocks

A.5.18 directly governs the provisioning, review, adjustment and timely revocation of both physical and logical access rights per business rules, segregation of duties and risk-evaluated changes/terminations; this stops most unauthorized-actor exploitation paths named by CWE-284, with a bounded remainder (e.g. path-traversal or CSRF cases that are not authorization decisions at all)

blocks

A.6.7's policy, rules, mechanisms, authentication requirements, remote access controls, network restrictions, and device measures (e.g. screen locks, firewalls, malware protection) directly stop unauthorized actors from exploiting improper access control in remote settings; remainder is non-remote or physical-only slices of CWE-284 (as in AC-3's own mostly precedent).

blocks

A.8.1 mandates access controls, storage encryption, software restrictions, malware protection, remote lock/wipe, physical/logical device protections, and policy-driven enforcement that stop unauthorized actors from exploiting improper access control on endpoints; remainder is non-endpoint or non-device slices of CWE-284 (e.g. server-side authorization logic).

blocks

A.8.2 directly controls allocation, review, expiry, temporary use, separate identities and heightened authentication for privileged rights per the access policy, which stops most improper-access-control exploitation paths for privileged resources; the bounded remainder is non-privileged improper access control (e.g. ordinary user rights, path traversal, CSRF).

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-284, a pillar-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-749, CWE-1220.

References