{"id":59691,"date":"2025-07-27T22:35:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T22:35:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-22T19:05:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T01:05:52","slug":"cve-2025-25251-incorrect-authorization-vulnerability-in-forticlient-mac-leads-to-privilege-escalation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-25251-incorrect-authorization-vulnerability-in-forticlient-mac-leads-to-privilege-escalation\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-25251: Incorrect Authorization Vulnerability in FortiClient Mac Leads to Privilege Escalation<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has identified a critical security flaw designated as CVE-2025-25251. This vulnerability is found in specific versions of FortiClient for Mac, a popular endpoint protection solution. The flaw, categorized as an Incorrect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-52448-critical-authorization-bypass-vulnerability-in-salesforce-tableau-server\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"68818\">Authorization vulnerability<\/a> [CWE-863], could potentially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-41666-watchdog-file-replacement-vulnerability-allowing-remote-access-and-control\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"67886\">allow an attacker with local access<\/a> to the system to escalate their privileges by sending specially crafted XPC messages.<br \/>\nThis is a significant concern, particularly for organizations using the affected versions of FortiClient Mac. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-8060-critical-vulnerability-in-tenda-ac23-leading-to-stack-based-buffer-overflow\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"67885\">vulnerability could potentially lead<\/a> to system compromise or data leakage, severely impacting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of resources.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-25251<br \/>\nSeverity: High (7.8 CVSS Score)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Local<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: None<br \/>\nUser Interaction: None<br \/>\nImpact: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-27055-memory-corruption-leads-to-potential-system-compromise-during-image-encoding\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"74220\">System compromise<\/a>, potential data leakage<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-2952406839\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 700px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 8px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 40px; height: 40px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    A new way to communicate\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 12px;\">\r\n    Ameeba Chat is built on encrypted identity, not personal profiles.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 16px;\">\r\n    Message, call, share files, and coordinate with identities kept separate.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 20px;\">\r\n    <li>\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Ameeba Chat authenticates access<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Aliases and categories<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, and files<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Secure notes for sensitive information<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\r\n    Private communication, rethought.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Download Ameeba Chat<\/a>\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Learn More<\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>FortiClient Mac | 7.4.0 through 7.4.2<br \/>\nFortiClient Mac | 7.2.0 through 7.2.8<br \/>\nFortiClient Mac | 7.0.0 through 7.0.14<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-8322-critical-missing-authorization-vulnerability-in-e-school-software-by-ventem\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"70272\">vulnerability exploits a flaw in the authorization<\/a> controls of FortiClient. Specifically, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-42959-unauthenticated-replay-attack-exploiting-hmac-reuse\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"74221\">attacker can exploit<\/a> this vulnerability by sending specially crafted XPC messages to the FortiClient application. XPC is a form of interprocess communication used in Mac OS applications. In this case, the attacker manipulates this communication to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-49747-unauthorized-privilege-elevation-in-azure-machine-learning\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"68733\">elevate their privileges<\/a> on the system.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-2111547485\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Below is a conceptual example of shell <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-7097-critical-command-injection-vulnerability-in-comodo-internet-security-premium\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"68538\">command that an attacker might use to exploit this vulnerability:<\/a><\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">#!\/bin\/bash\n# Craft malicious XPC message\nmalicious_xpc_message = &quot;malicious_payload&quot;\n# Send the malicious XPC message to FortiClient\nxpc_send &quot;com.fortinet.FortiClient&quot; $malicious_xpc_message<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>This script crafts a malicious XPC message and uses the `xpc_send` command to send the message to the FortiClient application. If successful, this could <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-7793-critical-vulnerability-in-tenda-fh451-leading-to-system-compromise\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"68537\">lead to privilege escalation on the system<\/a>.<br \/>\nPlease note that this is a conceptual example meant for educational purposes only. It is crucial to keep your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-7093-critical-vulnerability-in-belkin-f9k1122-1-00-33-impacting-system-security-and-data-integrity\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"91202\">systems updated with the latest security<\/a> patches to prevent such potential attacks.<br \/>\nIn the case of CVE-2025-25251, the mitigation guidance is to apply the vendor patch as soon as possible or use WAF\/IDS for temporary mitigation until the patch can be applied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has identified a critical security flaw designated as CVE-2025-25251. This vulnerability is found in specific versions of FortiClient for Mac, a popular endpoint protection solution. The flaw, categorized as an Incorrect Authorization vulnerability [CWE-863], could potentially allow an attacker with local access to the system to escalate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[105],"product":[],"attack_vector":[76],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-59691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","vendor-fortinet","attack_vector-privilege-escalation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59691"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84221,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59691\/revisions\/84221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59691"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=59691"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=59691"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=59691"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=59691"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=59691"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=59691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}