Auth bypass in Waves Audio Ltd. Central
CVE-2026-86819
Waves Central for macOS contains a local privilege escalation in the privileged helper service. The helper authorizes connecting XPC clients by comparing the caller's code-signing certificate chain for equality with its own, rather than validating the caller against a pinned code requirement (application identifier and Team ID). A local, authenticated user can execute code within the vendor-signed process, satisfy the helper's client check, and cause the helper to execute a script with root privileges. Fixed in 17.0.
Vulnerability class: Broken Access Control
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 7.1 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.001 (0.8th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 1st percentile — 0.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.001 · change: 0.000
Affected products
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
- 9119a7d8-5eab-497f-8521-727c672e3725
- 9119a7d8-5eab-497f-8521-727c672e3725 (vdb-entry)
- 9119a7d8-5eab-497f-8521-727c672e3725 (third-party-advisory)
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-86819?
- CVE-2026-86819 is a high-severity vulnerability in Waves Audio Ltd. Central, classified under Missing Authorization. CVSS score: 7.1/10. Published 2026-09-08.
- How severe is CVE-2026-86819?
- High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.1 out of 10.