CVE-2003-0171: Apple Mac OS X

High severity, CVSS 7.2. EPSS: 0.9% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

DirectoryServices in MacOS X trusts the PATH environment variable to locate and execute the touch command, which allows local users to execute arbitrary commands by modifying the PATH to point to a directory containing a malicious touch program.

Affected products

• Apple Mac OS X: version 10.0 only; version 10.0.1 only; version 10.0.2 only; version 10.0.3 only; version 10.0.4 only; version 10.1 only; …
• Apple Mac OS X Server: version 10.0 only; version 10.2 only; version 10.2.1 only; version 10.2.2 only; version 10.2.3 only; version 10.2.4 only

Published 2003-05-05. Last modified 2026-06-16.