Description
Waves Central for macOS contains a local privilege escalation in the privileged helper service. The helper authorizes connecting XPC clients by comparing the caller's code-signing certificate chain for equality with its own, rather than validating the caller against a pinned code requirement (application identifier and Team ID). A local, authenticated user can execute code within the vendor-signed process, satisfy the helper's client check, and cause the helper to execute a script with root privileges. Fixed in 17.0.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Waves Audio | Waves Central | 16.6.2 – < 17.0 | 17.0 |
Advisories 1
- VA-26-251-02 Waves Central local privilege escalation via Improper XPC Client Authentication in macOS CISA ICS & IT advisories · Sep 8, 2026