Local privilege escalation via LaunchDaemon hijacking
Published Oct 14, 2025 · Updated Oct 14, 2025
Incorrect permissions in FortiClient for macOS allow local users to execute arbitrary code through LaunchDaemon hijacking. Fortinet has not disclosed which LaunchDaemon resource has unsafe permissions or which writable path is replaced during the hijack. A low-privileged local account is required; affected releases are 7.0.0 through 7.0.14, 7.2.0 through 7.2.11, and 7.4.0 through 7.4.3, and successful exploitation runs code with elevated privileges.
Summary
What happened
Incorrect permissions in FortiClient for macOS allow local users to execute arbitrary code through LaunchDaemon hijacking. Fortinet has not disclosed which LaunchDaemon resource has unsafe permissions or which writable path is replaced during the hijack. A low-privileged local account is required; affected releases are 7.0.0 through 7.0.14, 7.2.0 through 7.2.11, and 7.4.0 through 7.4.3, and successful exploitation runs code with elevated privileges.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-57741
- Published
- Oct 14, 2025
- Updated
- Oct 14, 2025
- Vendor
- Fortinet
- Product
- FortiClient for macOS
- Classifications
- CWE-732, T1547.011
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Oct 14, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Oct 14, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=7.0.0 <=7.0.14
- Affected versionversion=7.2.0 <=7.2.11
- Affected versionversion=7.4.0 <=7.4.3
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
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.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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