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Privilege Escalation via Parallels Appliance Extract Argument Injection

Identifies the Parallels Desktop root dispatcher (prl_disp_service) spawning tar/bsdtar with more arguments than its fixed extract command uses. The dispatcher always runs a 5-token command (tar -xf <archive> -C…

Description

Identifies the Parallels Desktop root dispatcher (prl_disp_service) spawning tar/bsdtar with more arguments than its fixed extract command uses. The dispatcher always runs a 5-token command (tar -xf <archive> -C <dir>), so any additional arguments indicate an attacker-controlled folder name injecting extra tar flags. On macOS these flags let tar read or write attacker-chosen paths or execute an external program as root, resulting in local privilege escalation (CVE-2026-90894, Parallels Desktop < 27.0.0).

Detection logic

Its licence does not clear it for publishing here

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Detection requirements

Platform
ContainersLinuxmacOSWindows

The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 2 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.

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