CVE-2025-53819 Nix's privilege dropping to build user broke for macOS
Nix on macOS executed builds with root privileges instead of unprivileged users, allowing potential privilege escalation during package builds.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2025-53819?
CVE-2025-53819 is a high-severity vulnerability in NixOS nix, published on 14 Jul 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. Builds with Nix 2.30.0 on macOS were executed with elevated privileges (root), instead of the build users. The fix was applied to Nix 2.30.1. No known workarounds are available.
Weakness: CWE-271
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-53819?
How do I fix CVE-2025-53819?
No fix has been published for CVE-2025-53819 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2025-53819 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-53819 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-qc7j-jgf3-qmhg.