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Fencer Intel
medium 5.6

CVE-2022-3421 json

Privilege escalation in Google Drive for Desktop on MacOS

published 4y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2022-42798

cvss
5.6
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 2%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An attacker can pre-create the `/Applications/Google\ Drive.app/Contents/MacOS` directory which is expected to be owned by root to be owned by a non-root user. When the Drive for Desktop installer is run for the first time, it will place a binary in that directory with execute permissions and set its setuid bit. Since the attacker owns the directory, the attacker can replace the binary with a symlink, causing the installer to set the setuid bit on the symlink. When the symlink is executed, it will run with root permissions. We recommend upgrading past version 64.0

Patch / fix

  • Google LLC Drive for Desktop MacOS 64.0

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
last yr.

Exploit prediction

0.12% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L
NVD 3.1 7.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Google LLC Drive for Desktop MacOS

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls
  • CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.