CVE-2022-26688: Apple Mac OS X

Medium severity, CVSS 4.4. EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

An issue in the handling of symlinks was addressed with improved validation. This issue is fixed in Security Update 2022-003 Catalina, macOS Monterey 12.3, macOS Big Sur 11.6.5. A malicious app with root privileges may be able to modify the contents of system files.

Affected products

• Apple Mac OS X: from 10.15, before 10.15.7 (fixed in 10.15.7); version 10.15.7 only
• Apple macOS: from 11.0, before 11.6.5 (fixed in 11.6.5); from 12.0.0, before 12.3 (fixed in 12.3)

Published 2022-05-26. Last modified 2026-06-17.