CVE-2026-90894

Parallels Desktop local privilege escalation via appliance extract argument injection

State: Published
Severity: 7.8 High
Published: Sep 14, 2026
Updated: Sep 15, 2026
Reserved: Sep 14, 2026

Description

Parallels Desktop runs prl_disp_service as root. Local clients reach it on the world-writable socket /var/run/prl_disp_service.socket. PrlSrv_LoginLocal accepts peer credentials. No Parallels signature. No admin group.

After login, PrlSrv_InstallAppliance lets you pick the appliance folder (sVmParentPath). The daemon unpacks with one string, tar -xf "%1" -C "%2", then Qt QProcess::splitCommand chops that string into words. A quote in the folder name closes early. The leftover text becomes extra tar flags. macOS tar --use-compress-program= runs the named program as root.

Scores

CVSS	Score	Vector	Source
3.1	7.8 High	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H	JFROG

Weaknesses

CWE-88 Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command ('Argument Injection')
CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')
CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management

Affected Products

Product	Versions
Parallels Desktop for MacParallels	26.4.0Affected 27.0.0Not affected

References

Parallels Desktop for Macproduct
Parallels Desktop 27 updates summaryrelease-notes

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