Threats / Apple / CVE-2020-9859
CVE-2020-9859
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Apple Multiple Products vulnerability
Apple's iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS contain an unspecified use-after-free vulnerability allowing applications to execute code with kernel privileges.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
A use-after-free flaw in multiple Apple platforms enables local privilege escalation to kernel level. Active exploitation in the wild demonstrates practical attack viability, though no ransomware campaigns have been observed.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
1 independent public report 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 2021-11-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.00798 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Apple, Multiple Products. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-415 Double Free — weakness family: Memory safety.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
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 craft a malicious application that exploits the use-after-free condition to gain kernel-level code execution.
Business
Device security is completely compromised, enabling full system control and data exfiltration across the entire Apple ecosystem.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I leverage kernel access to disable security controls and persist malware across device reboots.
Business
Enterprise deployments face uncontainable compromise; remediation requires device replacement rather than patching.
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