Adobe Creative Cloud Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Vulnerability

This vulnerability affects Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application version 5.3 and earlier on Apple macOS. It resides in the Adobe privileged helper tool, which lacks proper validation of its clients. This allows low-privileged processes to invoke functions intended for high-privileged actions against the installer [1].

Exploitation

An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system. No user interaction is required. The attacker can then leverage the missing validation to call functions on the privileged helper tool, effectively escalating privileges [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation allows the attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of root, leading to full system compromise, including unauthorized data access, modification, and denial of service [1].

Mitigation

As of the advisory publication date (March 15, 2021), Adobe has not yet released a patch for this vulnerability. Users are advised to limit local access to trusted users and monitor for official updates from Adobe [1].