A vulnerability in the London Trust Media Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN Client v82 for macOS could allow an authenticated, local attacker to run arbitrary code with elevated privileges. The openvpn_launcher binary is setuid root. This program is called during the connection process and executes several operating system utilities to configure the system. The networksetup utility is called using relative paths. A local unprivileged user can execute arbitrary commands as root by creating a networksetup trojan which will be executed during the connection process. This is possible because the PATH environment variable is not reset prior to executing the OS utility.
The product searches for critical resources using an externally-supplied search path that can point to resources that are not under the product’s direct control.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private_internet_access_vpn_client | Londontrustmedia | 82 (including) | 82 (including) |
This might allow attackers to execute their own programs, access unauthorized data files, or modify configuration in unexpected ways. If the product uses a search path to locate critical resources such as programs, then an attacker could modify that search path to point to a malicious program, which the targeted product would then execute. The problem extends to any type of critical resource that the product trusts. Some of the most common variants of untrusted search path are: