CVE-2023-23525
Description
A privilege escalation vulnerability in macOS and iOS allows an app to gain root privileges; fixed in macOS Ventura 13.3, iOS 16.4, iPadOS 16.4, and macOS Big Sur 11.7.5.
AI Insight
LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.
A privilege escalation vulnerability in macOS and iOS allows an app to gain root privileges; fixed in macOS Ventura 13.3, iOS 16.4, iPadOS 16.4, and macOS Big Sur 11.7.5.
Vulnerability
The vulnerability is a privilege escalation issue in the operating system's privilege management. An app may be able to escalate its privileges to root. Affected versions include macOS Ventura before 13.3, iOS before 16.4, iPadOS before 16.4, and macOS Big Sur before 11.7.5 [1][2][3].
Exploitation
An attacker would need the ability to run an app on the device. No additional authentication or user interaction beyond launching the app is required. The exact exploitation steps have not been disclosed by Apple.
Impact
Successful exploitation allows the app to gain root privileges, giving full control over the device.
Mitigation
Apple released fixes in macOS Ventura 13.3, iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4, and macOS Big Sur 11.7.5 on March 27, 2023 [1][2][3]. Users should update to these versions. No workarounds are available.
AI Insight generated on May 25, 2026. Synthesized from this CVE's description and the cited reference URLs; citations are validated against the source bundle.
Affected products
5- Range: <16.4
- Range: <13.3
- Range: <16.4
- Range: unspecified
- Range: unspecified
Patches
0No patches discovered yet.
Vulnerability mechanics
No source-code context for this CVE — mechanics is only generated when we can read the actual fix diff. Without that, the four sections (root cause, attack vector, affected code, fix) would be speculation rather than analysis.
References
3News mentions
0No linked articles in our index yet.