CVE-2026-40604
MediumCVSS 4.4Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk1th percentile - higher than 1% of all known CVEs
Summary
In ClearanceKit before 5.0.6, the opfilter system extension can be suspended with SIGSTOP or killed with SIGKILL/SIGTERM by any process running as root. While suspended, AUTH Endpoint Security events time out and default to allow, silently disabling file-access policy enforcement.
Risk Assessment
An attacker with root privileges can disable file-access control, enabling bypass of security policies and unauthorized access to protected resources.
Recommendation
Update ClearanceKit to version 5.0.6 or later.
Other vulnerabilities in ClearanceKit
See all- CVE-2026-47134Medium
In ClearanceKit before version 5.0.10, the ECDSA key used to sign the policy database is stored in the macOS keychain without ACL restrictions. Any root process can use this key to sign arbitrary policy content.
- CVE-2026-47133Medium
In ClearanceKit before version 5.0.10, ECDSA signatures for SQLite database tables lack a version counter or freshness binding. An attacker can replace the database and signatures with an older, legitimately signed version, which will be accepted by the system.
- CVE-2026-40191Medium
ClearanceKit versions prior to 5.0.4-beta-1f46165 have a flaw in the Endpoint Security event handler where only the source path of dual-path file operations is checked, and the destination path is ignored. This allows any local process to bypass file-access protection using rename, link, copyfile, exchangedata, or clone operations.
- CVE-2026-34218Medium
ClearanceKit has a startup defect where only compile-time rules are enforced until user interacts with GUI. MDM and user-defined rules are not applied.
Original NVD description (English source)
ClearanceKit intercepts file-system access events on macOS and enforces per-process access policies. Prior to 5.0.6, the opfilter Endpoint Security system extension (bundle ID uk.craigbass.clearancekit.opfilter) can be suspended with SIGSTOP or kill -STOP, or killed with SIGKILL/SIGTERM, by any process running as root. While the extension is suspended, all AUTH Endpoint Security events time out and default to allow, silently disabling ClearanceKit's file-access policy enforcement for the duration of the suspension. This vulnerability is fixed in 5.0.6.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS