CVE-2022-3421: Privilege escalation in Google Drive for Desktop on MacOS

Severity: high (CVSS 7.3 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2022-10-17 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-264

Description

An attacker can pre-create the `/Applications/Google\ Drive.app/Contents/MacOS` directory which is expected to be owned by root to be owned by a non-root user. When the Drive for Desktop installer is run for the first time, it will place a binary in that directory with execute permissions and set its setuid bit. Since the attacker owns the directory, the attacker can replace the binary with a symlink, causing the installer to set the setuid bit on the symlink. When the symlink is executed, it will run with root permissions. We recommend upgrading past version 64.0

Affected products

Google LLC Drive for Desktop MacOS: before 64.0 — fixed in 64.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Google LLC Drive for Desktop MacOS 64.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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