Local privilege escalation through undisclosed correctness error
Published May 12, 2025 · Updated Apr 2, 2026
Privilege escalation in mDNSResponder in Apple operating systems before their May 2025 updates allows local users to gain elevated privileges. Apple has not published the erroneous operation or the checks that mDNSResponder performs incorrectly. Exploitation requires local user access, and the disclosed consequence is limited to gaining elevated privileges.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in mDNSResponder in Apple operating systems before their May 2025 updates allows local users to gain elevated privileges. Apple has not published the erroneous operation or the checks that mDNSResponder performs incorrectly. Exploitation requires local user access, and the disclosed consequence is limited to gaining elevated privileges.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-31222
- Published
- May 12, 2025
- Updated
- Apr 2, 2026
- Vendor
- Apple
- Product
- iOS and iPadOS
- Classifications
- T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- Unavailable
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 12, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 2, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=0 <18.5
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
No CVSS assessment is available in this record.
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo