CVE-2022-3421 MEDIUM

CVE-2022-3421: Privilege escalation in Google Drive for Desktop on MacOS

Vendor Google Llc
Product Drive for Desktop MacOS
Weakness CWE-264
Published October 17, 2022
Last update April 21, 2025

CVSS base score

5.6/10
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction Required
Confidentiality None
Integrity High

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L

What the vulnerability does

01Description

An attacker can pre-create the `/Applications/Google\ Drive.app/Contents/MacOS` directory which is expected to be owned by root to be owned by a non-root user. When the Drive for Desktop installer is run for the first time, it will place a binary in that directory with execute permissions and set its setuid bit. Since the attacker owns the directory, the attacker can replace the binary with a symlink, causing the installer to set the setuid bit on the symlink. When the symlink is executed, it will run with root permissions. We recommend upgrading past version 64.0

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

October 17, 2022 CVE published
April 21, 2025 Record updated