CVE-2020-9842: 
macOS vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2020-9842 is an entitlement parsing vulnerability discovered in Apple's operating systems that was fixed in iOS 13.5, iPadOS 13.5, macOS Catalina 10.15.5, tvOS 13.4.5, and watchOS 6.2.5. The vulnerability was discovered by Linus Henze of pinauten.de and was disclosed in May 2020. The issue affected the AppleMobileFileIntegrity component across multiple Apple platforms (Apple iOS, Apple macOS, Apple tvOS, Apple watchOS).

The vulnerability was identified as an entitlement parsing issue in the AppleMobileFileIntegrity component. The CVSS v3.1 base score for this vulnerability is 7.1 (HIGH), with a vector string of CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N. The vulnerability required local access and user interaction to exploit, but did not require privileges and could result in high impacts to both confidentiality and integrity (NVD).

If exploited, this vulnerability could allow a malicious application to interact with system processes to access private information and perform privileged actions. The vulnerability had potential impacts on both system security and user privacy (Apple iOS, Apple macOS).

The vulnerability required local access and user interaction to exploit. While the technical details of exploitation were not publicly disclosed, the vulnerability could be triggered by a malicious application to gain unauthorized access to system processes (NVD).

Apple addressed this vulnerability by improving the parsing mechanism in AppleMobileFileIntegrity. The fix was released in iOS 13.5, iPadOS 13.5, macOS Catalina 10.15.5, tvOS 13.4.5, and watchOS 6.2.5. Users were advised to update their devices to these versions or later to protect against this vulnerability (Apple iOS, Apple macOS).