About the security content of macOS Catalina 10.15
This document describes the security content of macOS Catalina 10.15.
About Apple security updates
For our customers' protection, Apple doesn't disclose, discuss or confirm security issues until an investigation has taken place and patches or releases are available. Recent releases are listed on the Apple security updates page.
Apple security documents reference vulnerabilities by CVE-ID when possible.
For more information about security, see the Apple Product Security page.
macOS Catalina 10.15
AMD
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2019-8748: Lilang Wu and Moony Li of TrendMicro Mobile Security Research Team
apache_mod_php
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: multiple issues in PHP
Description: multiple issues were addressed by updating to PHP version 7.3.8.
CVE-2019-11041
CVE-2019-11042
Audio
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing a maliciously crafted audio file may lead to arbitrary code execution
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved state management.
CVE-2019-8706: Yu Zhou of Ant-Financial Light-Year Security Lab
Audio
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing a maliciously crafted audio file may disclose restricted memory
Description: an out-of-bounds read was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2019-8850: Anonymous working with Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative
Books
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: parsing a maliciously crafted iBooks file may lead to a persistent denial of service
Description: a resource exhaustion issue was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2019-8774: Gertjan Franken imec-DistriNet of KU Leuven
CFNetwork
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to a cross-site scripting attack
Description: this issue was addressed with improved checks.
CVE-2019-8753: Łukasz Pilorz of Standard Chartered GBS Poland
CoreAudio
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing a maliciously crafted movie may result in the disclosure of process memory
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved validation.
CVE-2019-8705: riusksk of VulWar Corp working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative
CoreAudio
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: playing a malicious audio file may lead to arbitrary code execution
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2019-8592: riusksk of VulWar Corp working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative
CoreCrypto
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing a large input may lead to a denial of service
Description: a denial-of-service issue was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2019-8741: Nicky Mouha of NIST
CoreMedia
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved state management.
CVE-2019-8825: found by GWP-ASan in Google Chrome
Crash Reporter
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: the 'Share Mac Analytics' setting may not be disabled when a user deselects the switch to share analytics
Description: a race condition existed when reading and writing user preferences. This was addressed with improved state handling.
CVE-2019-8757: William Cerniuk of Core Development, LLC
CUPS
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an attacker in a privileged network position may be able to leak sensitive user information
Description: an input validation issue was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2019-8736: Pawel Gocyla of ING Tech Poland (ingtechpoland.com)
CUPS
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing a maliciously crafted string may lead to heap corruption
Description: a memory consumption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2019-8767: Stephen Zeisberg
CUPS
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an attacker in a privileged position may be able to perform a denial-of-service attack
Description: a denial-of-service issue was addressed with improved validation.
CVE-2019-8737: Pawel Gocyla of ING Tech Poland (ingtechpoland.com)
dyld
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2019-8776: Jann Horn of Google Project Zero
File Quarantine
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a malicious application may be able to elevate privileges
Description: this issue was addressed by removing the vulnerable code.
CVE-2019-8509: CodeColorist of Ant-Financial Light-Year Labs
Foundation
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a remote attacker may be able to cause unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution
Description: an out-of-bounds read was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2019-8746: natashenka and Samuel Groß of Google Project Zero
Graphics
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing a malicious shader may result in unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution
Description: multiple memory corruption issues were addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2018-12152: Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos
CVE-2018-12153: Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos
CVE-2018-12154: Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos
IOGraphics
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a local user may be able to cause unexpected system termination or read kernel memory
Description: an out-of-bounds read was addressed with improved bounds checking.
CVE-2019-8759: another of 360 Nirvan Team
Intel Graphics Driver
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2019-8758: Lilang Wu and Moony Li of Trend Micro
IOGraphics
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a malicious application may be able to determine kernel memory layout
Description: a logic issue was addressed with improved restrictions.
CVE-2019-8755: Lilang Wu and Moony Li of Trend Micro
Kernel
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an application may be able to gain elevated privileges
Description: this issue was addressed with improved entitlements.
CVE-2019-8703: an anonymous researcher
Kernel
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a local app may be able to read a persistent account identifier
Description: a validation issue was addressed with improved logic.
CVE-2019-8809: Apple
Kernel
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a malicious application may be able to determine kernel memory layout
Description: a memory corruption issue existed in the handling of IPv6 packets. This issue was addressed with improved memory management.
CVE-2019-8744: Zhuo Liang of Qihoo 360 Vulcan Team
Kernel
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2019-8717: Jann Horn of Google Project Zero
Kernel
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved state management.
CVE-2019-8709: derrek (@derrekr6)
CVE-2019-8781: Linus Henze (pinauten.de)
libxml2
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: multiple issues in libxml2
Description: multiple memory corruption issues were addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2019-8749: found by OSS-Fuzz
CVE-2019-8756: found by OSS-Fuzz
libxslt
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: multiple issues in libxslt
Description: multiple memory corruption issues were addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2019-8750: found by OSS-Fuzz
mDNSResponder
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an attacker in physical proximity may be able to passively observe device names in AWDL communications
Description: this issue was resolved by replacing device names with a random identifier.
CVE-2019-8799: David Kreitschmann and Milan Stute of Secure Mobile Networking Lab at Technische Universität Darmstadt
Menus
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved state management.
CVE-2019-8826: found by GWP-ASan in Google Chrome
Notes
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a local user may be able to view a user’s locked notes
Description: the contents of locked notes sometimes appeared in search results. This issue was addressed with improved data cleanup.
CVE-2019-8730: Jamie Blumberg (@jamie_blumberg) of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
PDFKit
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an attacker may be able to exfiltrate the contents of an encrypted PDF
Description: an issue existed in the handling of links in encrypted PDFs. This issue was addressed by adding a confirmation prompt.
CVE-2019-8772: Jens Müller of Ruhr University Bochum, Fabian Ising of FH Münster University of Applied Sciences, Vladislav Mladenov of Ruhr University Bochum, Christian Mainka of Ruhr University Bochum, Sebastian Schinzel of FH Münster University of Applied Sciences and Jörg Schwenk of Ruhr University Bochum
PluginKit
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a local user may be able to check for the existence of arbitrary files
Description: a logic issue was addressed with improved restrictions.
CVE-2019-8708: an anonymous researcher
PluginKit
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2019-8715: an anonymous researcher
Sandbox
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a malicious application may be able to access restricted files
Description: an access issue was addressed with additional sandbox restrictions.
CVE-2019-8855: Apple
SharedFileList
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a malicious application may be able to access recent documents
Description: the issue was addressed with improved permissions logic.
CVE-2019-8770: Stanislav Zinukhov of Parallels International GmbH
sips
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2019-8701: Simon Huang (@HuangShaomang), Rong Fan (@fanrong1992) and pjf of IceSword Lab of Qihoo 360
UIFoundation
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: parsing a maliciously crafted text file may lead to disclosure of user information
Description: this issue was addressed with improved checks.
CVE-2019-8761: Renee Trisberg of SpectX
UIFoundation
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: processing a maliciously crafted text file may lead to arbitrary code execution
Description: a buffer overflow was addressed with improved bounds checking.
CVE-2019-8745: riusksk of VulWar Corp working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative
UIFoundation
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: an application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges
Description: a memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2019-8831: riusksk of VulWar Corp working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative
WebKit
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: visiting a maliciously crafted website may reveal browsing history
Description: an issue existed in the drawing of web page elements. The issue was addressed with improved logic.
CVE-2019-8769: Piérre Reimertz (@reimertz)
WebKit
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a user may be unable to delete browsing history items
Description: 'Clear History and Website Data' did not clear the history. The issue was addressed with improved data deletion.
CVE-2019-8768: Hugo S. Diaz (coldpointblue)
Wi-Fi
Available for: MacBook (Early 2015 and later), MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later), MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later), Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later), iMac Pro (all models), Mac Pro (Late 2013 and later)
Impact: a device may be passively tracked by its Wi-Fi MAC address
Description: a user privacy issue was addressed by removing the broadcast MAC address.
CVE-2019-8854: FuriousMacTeam of the United States Naval Academy and the Mitre Cooperation, Ta-Lun Yen of UCCU Hacker
Additional recognition
AppleRTC
We would like to acknowledge Vitaly Cheptsov for their assistance.
Audio
We would like to acknowledge riusksk of VulWar Corp working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative for their assistance.
boringssl
We would like to acknowledge Nimrod Aviram of Tel Aviv University, Robert Merget of Ruhr University Bochum, Juraj Somorovsky of Ruhr University Bochum and Thijs Alkemade (@xnyhps) of Computest for their assistance.
curl
We would like to acknowledge Joseph Barisa of The School District of Philadelphia for their assistance.
Finder
We would like to acknowledge Csaba Fitzl (@theevilbit) for their assistance.
Gatekeeper
We would like to acknowledge Csaba Fitzl (@theevilbit) for their assistance.
Identity Service
We would like to acknowledge Yiğit Can YILMAZ (@yilmazcanyigit) for their assistance.
Kernel
We would like to acknowledge Brandon Azad of Google Project Zero and Vlad Tsyrklevich for their assistance.
Local Authentication
We would like to acknowledge Ryan Lopopolo for their assistance.
mDNSResponder
We would like to acknowledge Gregor Lang of e.solutions GmbH for their assistance.
python
We would like to acknowledge an anonymous researcher for their assistance.
Safari Data Importing
We would like to acknowledge Kent Zoya for their assistance.
Security
We would like to acknowledge Pepijn Dutour Geerling (pepijn.io), an anonymous researcher for their assistance.
Simple certificate enrolment protocol (SCEP)
We would like to acknowledge an anonymous researcher for their assistance.
Siri
We would like to acknowledge Yuval Ron, Amichai Shulman and Eli Biham of Technion of Israel Institute of Technology for their assistance.
Telephony
We would like to acknowledge Phil Stokes of SentinelOne for their assistance.
VPN
We would like to acknowledge Royce Gawron of Second Son Consulting, Inc. for their assistance.
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