CVE-2020-25776

Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac 2020 (Consumer) is vulnerable to a symbolic link privilege escalation attack where an attacker could exploit a critical file on the system to escalate their privileges. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.

Weakness

The product attempts to access a file based on the filename, but it does not properly prevent that filename from identifying a link or shortcut that resolves to an unintended resource.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Follow the principle of least privilege when assigning access rights to entities in a software system.
• Denying access to a file can prevent an attacker from replacing that file with a link to a sensitive file. Ensure good compartmentalization in the system to provide protected areas that can be trusted.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/132.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/17.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/35.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/76.html

References

• https://helpcenter.trendmicro.com/en-us/article/TMKA-09924
• https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1236/