CVE-2026-24066: Slate Digital Connect macOS XPC certificate validation privilege escalation

Synopsis

This is an authentication bypass via flawed XPC certificate validation in Slate Digital Connect 1.37.0 for macOS. A local attacker without any special account privileges can craft a self-signed certificate with the expected organizational unit field, bypassing the helper tool's client check entirely because the software never verifies the certificate chains to a trusted authority. Successful exploitation gives the attacker full access to a privileged helper tool, enabling local privilege escalation with high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and system availability. No upstream fix has been published; HarborGuard is tracking the advisory for patch availability.

HarborGuard Coverage

Exploit Conditions

• Network reachabilityNot required

  The attacker needs an existing shell or process on the host; no network access is required to reach the vulnerable XPC service.

• AuthenticationNot required

  No account credentials or privileges are required; any unprivileged local process can initiate the malicious XPC connection.

• Victim interactionNot required

  The attack is fully self-contained and does not require any action from another user or process on the system.

• Attack complexityDetail

  The exploit is reliable and condition-free; generating a self-signed certificate with the expected OU value is a straightforward, repeatable operation requiring no race condition or environmental luck.

Blast Radius

• The attacker gains full control of the privileged helper tool, allowing execution of privileged operations on the macOS host.
• Confidential data accessible to the helper process (credentials, tokens, keychain-adjacent material) is readable by the attacker.
• The attacker can write or modify files and system state that only privileged processes should touch, including system configuration and installed software.
• The attacker can crash or disable the helper service, disrupting any functionality that depends on it.