Threats / Apple / CVE-2023-38606
CVE-2023-38606
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-09-19
Apple Multiple Products vulnerability
Apple's iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS contain an unspecified vulnerability allowing a malicious app to modify sensitive kernel state, potentially enabling privilege escalation or system compromise.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An installed application can exploit this vulnerability to alter kernel-level state without authorization. Active exploitation in the wild indicates practical weaponization. The lack of user interaction requirements and broad platform impact create significant risk across Apple's ecosystem.
CISA KEV Yes · 2023-07-264EPSS 0.02899 (verify live)5CVSS 5.5 (CISA)3CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: partial3
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
19 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-07-26).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.02899 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 5.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N) · Affected: Apple, Multiple Products. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: partialCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog the same day the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I distribute a seemingly benign app through official or third-party app stores to establish initial presence on target devices.
Business
User trust in app distribution channels is undermined; legitimate-appearing applications become vectors for system compromise.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I trigger the kernel state modification vulnerability from within my app's sandboxed execution context to escalate privileges.
Business
The device's security boundary is breached; kernel-level access enables complete system control and data exfiltration.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I persist malicious code at the kernel level, evading app removal and standard security controls.
Business
Remediation becomes difficult; affected devices remain compromised even after app deletion, requiring OS-level intervention.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05
Coverage & confidence
— what we know, and what we don’tEstablished (cited)
Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden
Disclosure & credit2
Catalogued by appleCNA
Credited with finding itNo finder is named in the public CVE record or the scanned vendor advisory — attribution scoped to the sources checked.
Found an error? Propose a correction.
A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source,
gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the
correction convention and our identity
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