CVE-2026-46735: Dell DDPM Mac OS Command Injection Allows Local Privilege Escalation

Overview

Dell Technologies disclosed CVE-2026-46735 on June 25, 2026 — a high-severity OS command injection vulnerability affecting Dell Display and Peripheral Manager (DDPM) for macOS. The flaw resides in versions prior to 2.3 and carries a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), classified under CWE-78: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command.

Dell Display and Peripheral Manager is a widely deployed utility that allows users to manage connected Dell monitors and peripherals from a macOS host. Millions of Dell display and peripheral users on macOS may be running a vulnerable version.

Technical Details

The vulnerability arises from improper sanitization of user-controlled input that is passed to an OS-level command execution context within the DDPM Mac application. An attacker with low-level local access — such as a standard unprivileged user account — can inject specially crafted shell metacharacters or command sequences to break out of the intended command context and execute arbitrary operating system commands.

Because DDPM runs with elevated privileges to manage hardware peripherals, successful exploitation allows the attacker to inherit those elevated rights. The attack vector is local (AV:L), requires low privileges (PR:L), and needs no user interaction (UI:N), making it highly practical in shared or multi-tenant environments where attackers may already have foothold via a limited user account.

The attack chain is straightforward:

1. Attacker gains or already has local user access (e.g., via phishing, initial malware payload, or insider threat).
2. Attacker submits malicious input to a DDPM Mac component that passes it unsanitized to a shell command.
3. Injected commands execute under the elevated context of the DDPM process.
4. Attacker achieves full Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability impact — the maximum possible for each dimension.

Security researcher Ori Gabriel is credited with discovering and responsibly disclosing this vulnerability to Dell.

Impact Assessment

This vulnerability is particularly dangerous in environments where multiple users share a macOS workstation — such as university labs, corporate shared terminals, or managed desktop environments — where a low-privileged account could be used to laterally escalate and compromise the underlying host.

Affected Products

Note: This advisory is specific to the macOS variant of DDPM. Separate, unrelated vulnerabilities exist for the Windows version of DDPM (see Dell Security Advisory DSA-2026-009 and DSA-2025-411 for Windows-specific issues).

Remediation

Dell has released a patched version. All DDPM Mac users should update immediately:

Update to DDPM Mac version 2.3 or later.

To update:

1. Visit Dell Support
2. Enter your display or device model number
3. Navigate to Drivers & Downloads
4. Locate Dell Display and Peripheral Manager (DDPM) for macOS
5. Download and install the latest version (2.3+)

Alternatively, Dell's auto-update mechanism within DDPM itself can be used if still functional on the installed version.

Mitigation (If Patching Is Not Immediately Possible)

If immediate patching is not feasible, consider the following interim mitigations:

• Restrict local user access to the macOS system — minimize the number of accounts that can log in locally.
• Monitor for unusual privilege escalation activity in macOS system logs (/var/log/system.log, Unified Logging via Console.app).
• Temporarily uninstall DDPM Mac if peripheral management is non-essential until the patch can be applied.
• Apply macOS endpoint protection controls to alert on anomalous command execution patterns.

References

• Dell DSA for CVE-2026-46735 — Dell Support Portal
• CVE-2026-46735 at THREATINT
• NVD Entry — CVE-2026-46735
• CWE-78: OS Command Injection