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Improper Certificate ValidationWeakness · CWE-295

CVE-2026-12374

MEDIUM · 6.4 CVSS v4.0 Published 2026-07-01
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
66/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click 7 weeks old

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
Improper certificate validation and a time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition in the PrivilegedHelperTool XPC service in Cato Client before v.5.13.1 on macOS allows a local authenticated attacker to escalate privileges to root via a self-signed certificate that bypasses the XPC caller verification and a symlink swap during package installation.

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

The Cato Client PrivilegedHelperTool XPC service on macOS contains two linked vulnerabilities: improper certificate validation that allows self-signed certificates to bypass XPC caller verification, combined with a TOCTOU race condition where a symlink can be swapped during package installation. A local authenticated attacker can exploit these flaws to escalate privileges to root.

MitigationUpgrade to Cato Client v5.13.1 or later, which addresses both the certificate validation weakness and the TOCTOU race condition in the PrivilegedHelperTool.

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

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
Authentication
Y
User interaction
None
Scope
X

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:Y/R:U/V:C/RE:L/U:Amber

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. Verify Cato Client installation
    Search for Cato Client application in /Applications folder or check via Spotlight: mdfind 'kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier == "com.catonetworks.client"'
    Affected if Cato Client is not found, the system is not affected by this CVE
  2. Determine installed Cato Client version
    Open Finder, go to /Applications, right-click Cato Client.app, select Get Info, read the Version field; or run: defaults read /Applications/Cato\ Client.app/Contents/Info CFBundleShortVersionString
    Affected if Version displays as a number lower than 5.13.1 (e.g., 5.13.0, 5.12.x, etc.)
  3. Locate the PrivilegedHelperTool component
    Check for the helper tool at /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/CatoClientPrivilegedHelper or within the app bundle at /Applications/Cato Client.app/Contents/Library/LaunchServices/
    Affected if PrivilegedHelperTool binary exists on the system, indicating the vulnerable XPC service component is installed
  4. Confirm vulnerable version range
    Compare the installed version from step 2 against the known fixed version 5.13.1; versions below 5.13.1 contain both the certificate validation flaw and the TOCTOU race condition
    Affected if Installed version is below 5.13.1 and the PrivilegedHelperTool is present, making the system vulnerable to local privilege escalation via the described attack vector

A system is affected if Cato Client with a version lower than 5.13.1 is installed and the PrivilegedHelperTool XPC service component is present, exposing the improper certificate validation and TOCTOU race condition flaws.

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
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Upgrade to Cato Client v5.13.1 or later, which addresses both the certificate validation weakness and the TOCTOU race condition in the PrivilegedHelperTool.

Recommended fix High confidence

Cato Client v5.13.1 or later

  1. Upgrade Cato Client to version 5.13.1 or later on macOS

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

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation12.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
26.0 hours of engineering $4,580
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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-2026-12374 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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