CVE-2020-25593
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 · uneditedAcronis True Image through 2021 on macOS allows local privilege escalation from admin to root due to insecure folder permissions.
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 confidenceAcronis True Image through version 2021 on macOS contains insecure folder permissions that allow a local user with administrator privileges to escalate to root access. The vulnerability stems from improperly secured directories used by the backup software, enabling privilege escalation from admin to root.
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<= 2021CVSS 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
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Confirm Acronis True Image is installedOpen Terminal and run: ls /Applications | grep -i 'true image' or check /Library/Application Support/ for Acronis foldersAffected if Acronis True Image application exists on the system
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Identify the installed versionRight-click the Acronis True Image.app in /Applications, select 'Get Info', and check the Version number, or run: defaults read /Applications/Acronis\ True\ Image.app/Contents/Info CFBundleShortVersionStringAffected if The version number is 2021 or lower (any version through 2021)
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Locate Acronis data directoriesSearch for Acronis folders in common locations: ls /Library/Application Support/ | grep -i acronis and ls ~/Library/Application Support/ | grep -i acronisAffected if Any Acronis-managed directories exist on the system
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Inspect folder permissions on Acronis directoriesRun: ls -la on the identified Acronis folders (e.g., ls -la /Library/Application Support/Acronis) and check if non-admin users or everyone has write permissions to any directory used by the softwareAffected if Folders show write permissions for group 'everyone' or non-admin users, or permissions are set to 777 or 775 rather than 755 or 700
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Verify privilege escalation potentialAs a non-root admin user, attempt to create or modify files in the Acronis directories identified above, then check if those files can be executed with elevated privilegesAffected if A user with admin privileges can modify files in Acronis directories that are subsequently executed with root privileges by the software
A user is affected if Acronis True Image version 2021 or earlier is installed AND insecure folder permissions exist on the directories used by the software, allowing a local admin to escalate to root.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor dataUpgrade Acronis True Image to version 2021 or later (or the latest available version) to obtain the vendor patch that corrects the insecure folder permissions. Alternatively, review and harden folder permissions on the affected installation manually if patching is not immediately feasible.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-25593 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-25593 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- 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
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