CVE-2025-46774
📋 TL;DR
A local privilege escalation vulnerability in FortiClient for macOS allows authenticated local users to gain elevated privileges by exploiting improper cryptographic signature verification in FortiClient executables. This affects macOS users running vulnerable FortiClient versions.
💻 Affected Systems
- FortiClient for macOS
📦 What is this software?
Forticlient by Fortinet
Forticlient by Fortinet
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Local attacker gains root privileges on the macOS system, enabling complete system compromise, data theft, persistence installation, and lateral movement.
Likely Case
Malicious local user or malware with user-level access escalates to administrative privileges to install additional malware, modify system configurations, or access protected data.
If Mitigated
With proper privilege separation and monitoring, impact is limited to isolated user sessions with detection of privilege escalation attempts.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires local user access. The vulnerability is in signature verification of FortiClient executables, which could be leveraged through various local execution methods.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Update to FortiClient version 7.4.3 or 7.2.10 or later
Vendor Advisory: https://fortiguard.fortinet.com/psirt/FG-IR-25-126
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Download latest FortiClient from Fortinet support portal. 2. Uninstall current FortiClient. 3. Install updated version. 4. Restart system.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Restrict FortiClient executable permissions
macOSTemporarily restrict execute permissions on FortiClient binaries to prevent exploitation
sudo chmod -x /Applications/FortiClient.app/Contents/MacOS/*
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict privilege separation and limit local user access to affected systems
- Enable detailed logging and monitoring for privilege escalation attempts and FortiClient process execution
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check FortiClient version in About dialog or run: /Applications/FortiClient.app/Contents/MacOS/FortiClient --versionCheck Version:
/Applications/FortiClient.app/Contents/MacOS/FortiClient --versionVerify Fix Applied:
Verify version is 7.4.3+, 7.2.10+, or not 7.0.x. Check that signature verification is functioning properly.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unexpected FortiClient process execution with elevated privileges
- Failed signature verification attempts
- Privilege escalation events in system logs
Network Indicators:
- None - this is a local privilege escalation
SIEM Query:
process_name:"FortiClient" AND parent_process NOT IN ("launchd", "loginwindow")