CVE-2025-43250VulnerabilityPublished 29 Jul 2025Updated 2 Apr 2026

CVE-2025-43250: Apple macOS · An app may be able to break out of its sandbox

Affects Apple macOSSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.0 Medium · fixed in 15.6 : update Apple macOS when convenient.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.0Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 14% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 15.6

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: Low
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 Jul 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-25.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Apple macOS	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-43250, organizations should promptly update affected macOS systems to versions Sequoia 15.6, Sonoma 14.7.7, or Ventura 13.7.7 or later, where the vulnerability is patched. Beyond patching, organizations should implement strict application whitelisting and code signing policies to reduce the risk of untrusted or malicious applications running locally. Employ endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions capable of monitoring for unusual sandbox escape behaviors or unauthorized file system access. Limit local user privileges to the minimum necessary to reduce the attack surface. Regularly audit installed applications and sandbox configurations to ensure compliance with security policies. For environments with sensitive data, consider additional sandboxing or containerization layers and monitor logs for suspicious path traversal or file access attempts. Educate users about the risks of installing untrusted software and maintain robust physical and logical access controls to prevent unauthorized local access.

Description

A path handling issue was addressed with improved validation. This issue is fixed in macOS Sequoia 15.6, macOS Sonoma 14.7.7, macOS Ventura 13.7.7. An app may be able to break out of its sandbox.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2025-43250 is the potential for an application to escape the macOS sandbox, undermining the integrity of the system and applications. This could allow a malicious app or attacker with local access to modify files or system components outside the sandbox constraints, potentially leading to unauthorized changes, persistence mechanisms, or lateral movement within the system. Although confidentiality and availability impacts are not directly indicated, integrity compromise can facilitate further attacks that may escalate privileges or exfiltrate data indirectly. Organizations relying on macOS sandboxing for security isolation, such as software developers, enterprises with macOS endpoints, and users running third-party applications, are at risk. The medium severity and local attack vector mean that exploitation requires local access, limiting remote attack scenarios but still posing a risk in environments where attackers can gain local footholds, such as through social engineering, phishing, or insider threats.

CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #6OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks…
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Path Traversal (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls (opens in a new tab)
Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 3 Apr 2026, 01:47 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-22

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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