Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can allow a local attacker to escalate their privileges to root on a Mac system running iBoysoft NTFS for Mac 8.0.0.

By exploiting the lack of authentication and command injection flaw in the privileged helper daemon, an attacker can execute arbitrary commands with root privileges, potentially leading to full system compromise.

• Arbitrary command execution as root
• Creation or modification of files and directories with root permissions
• Complete control over the affected system

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Executive Summary

CVE-2026-2637 is a local privilege escalation vulnerability in iBoysoft NTFS for Mac version 8.0.0. The issue lies in the privileged helper daemon called ntfshelperd, which runs as root and exposes an NSConnection service without any authentication or authorization checks.

Because the daemon runs as root and does not verify the identity or privileges of callers, any local unprivileged user can connect to this service and invoke privileged methods. This allows attackers to execute arbitrary commands as root, leading to full system compromise.

Specifically, the vulnerability involves command injection through the method mountAsNTFS:withKey:withMode:withFlag:, which constructs shell commands using user-controlled parameters without sanitization or proper quoting.

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Compliance Impact

I don't know

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Detection Guidance

This vulnerability can be detected by checking for the presence and status of the privileged helper daemon named ntfshelperd running on the system.

Specifically, you can verify if the NSConnection Distributed Objects service named com.iboysoft.ntfsformac.serverhelper is exposed without authentication.

Suggested commands to detect the vulnerability include:

• Use `ps aux | grep ntfshelperd` to check if the ntfshelperd daemon is running.
• Use `launchctl list | grep ntfshelperd` to see if the daemon is loaded as a launch service.
• Use `lsof -p <pid_of_ntfshelperd>` to inspect open files and network connections of the daemon.
• Check for the NSConnection service by inspecting running services or using debugging tools to detect the exposed service named com.iboysoft.ntfsformac.serverhelper.

Additionally, verifying if the daemon runs as root and exposes privileged methods without authentication can be done by attempting to connect locally to the NSConnection service and invoking methods such as fixLicPermissions or mountAsNTFS:withKey:withMode:withFlag: (only in a controlled, safe environment).

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Mitigation Strategies

Immediate mitigation steps include:

• Stop and disable the ntfshelperd daemon to prevent exploitation of the privileged NSConnection service.
• Uninstall or update iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to a version that addresses this vulnerability, if available.
• Restrict local user access to the system to trusted users only, as the vulnerability requires local access.
• Monitor the system for any suspicious activity related to the ntfshelperd daemon or unexpected root-level command executions.

Since the vulnerability arises from the daemon running as root and exposing privileged methods without authentication, removing or disabling the vulnerable service is critical until a patch or update is applied.

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