Local Privilege Escalation in Sparkle Autoupdate Daemon
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2025-10016 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | CERT-PL |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2025-09-16 10:15:38 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-10-19 17:10:00 UTC |
| Description | The Sparkle framework includes a helper tool Autoupdate. Due to lack of authentication of connecting clients a local unprivileged attacker can request installation of crafted malicious PKG file by racing to connect to the daemon when other app spawns it as root. This results in local privilege escalation to root privileges. It is worth noting that it is possible to spawn Autopudate manually via Installer XPC service. However this requires the victim to enter credentials upon system authorization dialog creation that can be modified by the attacker. This issue was fixed in version 2.7.2 |
Risk And Classification
Primary CVSS: v4.0 8.8 HIGH from [email protected]
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS: 0.001980000 probability, percentile 0.089910000 (date 2026-10-19)
Problem Types: CWE-863 | CWE-863 CWE-863 Incorrect Authorization
| Version | Source | Type | Score | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 | [email protected] | Secondary | 8.8 | HIGH | CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/E:X/C... |
| 4.0 | CNA | CVSS | 8.8 | HIGH | CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H |
CVSS v4.0 Breakdown
Attack Vector
LocalAttack Complexity
LowAttack Requirements
PresentPrivileges Required
LowUser Interaction
NoneConfidentiality
HighIntegrity
HighAvailability
HighSub Conf.
HighSub Integrity
HighSub Availability
HighCVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
Vendor Declared Affected Products
| Source | Vendor | Product | Version | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | Sparkle Project | Sparkle | affected 2.7.2 semver | MacOS |
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| cert.pl/en/posts/2025/09/CVE-2025-10015 | [email protected] | cert.pl | |
| github.com/sparkle-project/Sparkle/discussions/2764 | [email protected] | github.com | |
| github.com/sparkle-project/Sparkle | [email protected] | github.com | |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
Vendor Comments And Credit
Discovery Credit
CNA: Karol Mazurek - Afine Team (en)
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.