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Actively exploited in the wild. This CVE is on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list — treat remediation as urgent. Federal remediation due by 8 May 2023.
Mac Os XOperating system · Apple

CVE-2019-8526

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2019-12-18
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 10.14.4 or later.
See remediation →
96/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
In the wild Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. This issue is fixed in macOS Mojave 10.14.4. An application may be able to gain elevated privileges.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

A use-after-free vulnerability in macOS Mojave 10.14.3 and earlier allowed a locally executing application to corrupt memory and gain elevated privileges. The issue was addressed with improved memory management in the 10.14.4 update.

MitigationUpdate macOS to version 10.14.4 or later to patch the use-after-free vulnerability. For enterprise environments, verify all systems have applied the security update through patch management.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Mac Os XOperating system
Affected:< 10.14.4

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check installed macOS version
    Open Terminal and run: sw_vers -productVersion
    Affected if Version is 10.14.3 or earlier (less than 10.14.4)
  2. Verify full version build
    Open Terminal and run: uname -a to confirm kernel version, or check System Preferences > About for the exact macOS release name
    Affected if Shows macOS 10.14.4 or earlier

If the system is running any macOS version prior to 10.14.4, the vulnerability is present and exploitable by local applications.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 10.14.4 or later
Fixed in 10.14.4
Interim mitigation

Update macOS to version 10.14.4 or later to patch the use-after-free vulnerability. For enterprise environments, verify all systems have applied the security update through patch management.

Recommended fix High confidence

macOS Mojave 10.14.4 or later

  1. Back up important data before upgrading
  2. Upgrade macOS to version 10.14.4 (Mojave) or later via System Preferences > Software Update
  3. Alternatively, download macOS Mojave 10.14.4 from the Mac App Store and reinstall
Caveat Standard macOS upgrade may have compatibility impacts with older applications

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Mac Os X Exploited in the wild — priority engagement
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation3.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,820
Get it fixed fast

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,912.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-8526 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data