CVE-2026-12374

Improper certificate validation and a time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition in the PrivilegedHelperTool XPC service in Cato Client before v.5.13.1 on macOS allows a local authenticated attacker to escalate privileges to root via a self-signed certificate that bypasses the XPC caller verification and a symlink swap during package installation.

Weakness

The product does not validate, or incorrectly validates, a certificate.

Potential Mitigations

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/459.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/475.html

References

• https://support.catonetworks.com/hc/en-us/articles/37284626576413-Security-Vulnerability-CVE-2026-12374-that-Impacts-macOS-Client-Versions-Lower-than-5-13-1