Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Parallels Desktop for Mac
CVE-2024-36486

7.8HIGH

Key Information:

Vendor

Parallels

Status
Parallels Desktop For Mac
Vendor
CVE Published:
3 June 2025

What is CVE-2024-36486?

A vulnerability has been identified in the virtual machine archive restoration functionality of Parallels Desktop for Mac. Specifically, when an archived virtual machine is restored, the prl_vmarchiver tool utilizes root privileges to decompress and write files back to their original locations. This process can be exploited by an attacker using a hard link, allowing them to overwrite arbitrary files, which poses a significant risk for privilege escalation within the system.

Affected Version(s)

Parallels Desktop for Mac version 20.1.1 (55740)

References

https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS...

CVSS V3.1

Score:
7.8
Severity:
HIGH
Confidentiality:
High
Integrity:
High
Availability:
High
Attack Vector:
Local
Attack Complexity:
Low
Privileges Required:
Low
User Interaction:
None
Scope:
Unchanged

Timeline

  • Vulnerability published

  • Vulnerability Reserved

Credit

Discovered by KPC of Cisco Talos.
.