Local Privilege Escalation via Insecure XPC Client Validation in Waves Central for macOS

published 2026-06-09 5 mo ago modified 2026-07-23 3 mo ago also EUVD-2026-35448

cvss: 8.1; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.3%; EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 25%
public exploits: 0; none known

Waves Central for macOS versions 13.0.9 through 16.5.5 contain a local privilege escalation vulnerability in the privileged helper service. The helper validates connecting XPC clients using the client process identifier (PID) to verify code-signing identity. Because process identifiers can be reused, a local attacker can exploit a race condition between the time a connection request is made and the time the helper performs validation, causing the helper to trust an attacker-controlled process. This allows the attacker to invoke privileged operations, resulting in arbitrary code execution as root. The issue is fixed in version 16.6.2.

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: Proof of concept is public
Automatable: no
Technical impact: total
Assessed: 5 mo ago (2026-06-09)

Exploit prediction

0.32% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 25% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

sec-consult.com https://sec-consult.com/vulnerability-lab/advisory/multiple-local-privilege-escalation-vulnerabilities-in-waves-audio-waves-central/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CISA ADP	3.1	8.1	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA	3.1	8.1	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

Waves Audio Ltd. Waves Central

Classification

Weakness

CWE-367 Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition

References

sec-consult.com /vulnerability-lab/advisory/multiple-local-privilege-escalation-vulnerabilities-in-waves-audio-waves-central/
exploit
r.sec-consult.com /waves
third-party-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2026-24065
NVD CVE-2026-24065

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary