AWS Warns of Local Privilege Escalation Risk in ClientVPN for macOS

A local privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in the AWS ClientVPN. The flaw allows a non-administrator user to gain root-level privileges on affected systems through improper handling of log file rotation. This issue is limited to macOS and does not affect Windows or Linux versions of the AWS ClientVPN.

Severity: High

Vulnerability Details

1. CVE ID: CVE-2025-11462
2. CVSS Score: 7.8
3. Type: Local Privilege Escalation
4. Description: The vulnerability resides in the log rotation mechanism of the AWS ClientVPN macOS client. During log rotation, the client fails to properly validate the destination directory for log files.
5. Exploit Vector: Local system; attacker must have user-level access.
6. Exploitation: A local attacker can create a symlink from a client log file to a privileged location (e.g., /etc/crontab). When log rotation occurs, arbitrary content can be written to that privileged file.
7. Impact: This allows an non-admin user to inject malicious commands that will be executed with root privileges. Also, the flaw allows full system compromise once successful.

Affected Products

• This issue affects macOS version of the AWS VPN Client.
• Affected versions: 1.3.2 through 5.2.0

Recommendations

1. Upgrade to AWS ClientVPN macOS Client version 5.2.1 or higher.
2. Detect any creation or modification of symbolic links within client log file that point to privileged location (e.g., Crontab).

Source:

• https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/AWS-2025-020/
• https://gbhackers.com/aws-client-vpn-for-macos-privilege-escalation-vulnerability/

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