CVE-2025-52573

EUVD-2025-19229 · Published Jun 26, 2025

iOS Simulator MCP Command Injection allowed via exec API

Command Injection in MCP Server

The MCP Server at https://github.com/joshuayoes/ios-simulator-mcp/ is written in a way that is vulnerable to command injection vulnerability attacks as part of some of its MCP Server tool definition and implementation.

Vulnerable tool

The MCP Server exposes the tool ui_tap which relies on Node.js child process API exec which is an unsafe and vulnerable API if concatenated with untrusted user input.

LLM exposed user input for duration, udid, and x and y args can be replaced with shell meta-characters like ; or && or others to change the behavior from running the expected command idb to another command.

Vulnerable line of code: https://github.com/joshuayoes/ios-simulator-mcp/blob/main/src/index.ts#L166-L207

  server.tool(
    "ui_tap",
    "Tap on the screen in the iOS Simulator",
    {
      duration: z.string().optional().describe("Press duration"),
      udid: z
        .string()
        .optional()
        .describe("Udid of target, can also be set with the IDB_UDID env var"),
      x: z.number().describe("The x-coordinate"),
      y: z.number().describe("The x-coordinate"),
    },
    async ({ duration, udid, x, y }) => {
      try {
        const actualUdid = await getBootedDeviceId(udid);
        const durationArg = duration ? `--duration ${duration}` : "";
        const { stderr } = await execAsync(
          `idb ui tap --udid ${actualUdid} ${durationArg} ${x} ${y}  --json`
        );

Exploitation

When LLMs are tricked through prompt injection (and other techniques and attack vectors) to call the tool with input that uses special shell characters such as ; rm -rf /tmp;# and other payload variations, the full command-line text will be interepted by the shell and result in other commands except of ps executing on the host running the MCP Server.

Reference example from prior security research on this topic:

Cursor defined MCP Server vulnerable to command injection

Impact

User initiated and remote command injection on a running MCP Server.

References and Prior work

Disclosed by Liran Tal

Technologies

Ios-Simulator-Mcp Ios-Simulator-Mcp

Weaknesses

CWE-78

CVSS scores

v3.16.0CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

MITRE ATT&CK

Inferred

Where this vulnerability fits in an attack

ReconImpact

Privilege Escalation

T1068Exploitation for Privilege Escalation

References

Potentially impacted assets

See if this affects your attack surface

Latest trending attack

Criticalyesterday

Google Brotli decoder - Remote Code Execution via compressed requests (Exploitation Check)

This control is the second step of the Patrowl response to CVE-2026-111497 (Node2Shell). It complements the first control of 22 October 2026, which focused on the Node.js runtime, and does not replace it. Why a second control CVE-2026-111497 is an out-of-bounds write in the Google Brotli decoder, the library that decompresses Brotli ("br") data. It was first published as a Node.js vulnerability, because Node.js bundles this decoder. Later publications showed that the flaw is in the library itself. Every product that embeds an affected version of the decoder is concerned, whatever its language or vendor. A public proof of concept demonstrates code execution. Any server that decompresses request bodies sent with "Content-Encoding: br" exposes the decoder to unauthenticated attackers. Known cases include Express 5 and NestJS 11 on Node.js, Koa and Fastify setups, Bun, Envoy and Istio with request decompression enabled, and any application or reverse proxy that decodes Brotli request bodies with an affected library. The flaw also works in the other direction. A malicious server can compromise an unpatched client that decodes a Brotli response, for example Node.js fetch(), Python clients (requests, httpx, aiohttp, Scrapy) with the Brotli or brotlicffi package, or libcurl builds with Brotli support. What this control checks Patrowl sends small, valid Brotli-compressed requests to each asset and observes whether the server decodes them. The check does not depend on the technology: it detects the behaviour, whatever the stack behind it. These requests are what any legitimate client could send. They never reach the vulnerable code path and cannot affect the availability of the service. How to read the result Potentially impacted means the asset decodes Brotli request bodies: the attack surface is exposed. It does not confirm that the asset is vulnerable. The version of the Brotli decoder in use is not visible from the outside. This check covers applications that parse request bodies on their root path. A Not impacted result does not rule out exposure on other routes, nor on the client side. Checking the versions on the servers remains the only exhaustive verification. Affected and fixed versions Google Brotli 1.0.3 to 1.2.0 are affected, fixed in 1.0.10, 1.1.1 and 1.2.1. Fixed releases of the main products embedding it: Node.js 22.23.4, 24.22.1 and 26.12.1 (end-of-life lines 20.x and older and 25.x receive no fix), Bun 1.4.4, Envoy 1.37.8, 1.38.6, 1.39.3 and 1.40.0, Istio 1.29.9, 1.30.6 and 1.31.2, Python Brotli 1.2.1 and brotlicffi 1.2.1.0. Products that link against the system library depend on the Brotli package of the Linux distribution. Recommendations Update every component that embeds the Brotli decoder (only real fix). Start with the assets flagged by this control. Restart the processes after the update. Rebuild containers, single-executable applications and appliances that bundle an affected runtime or library. Reduce the exposure until the update is deployed. Reject requests with "Content-Encoding: br" at the reverse proxy, load balancer or WAF, case-insensitively and including lists such as "gzip, br". On Envoy and Istio, disable request decompression for Brotli. Review outbound calls. List the features that fetch content from servers you do not control, and patch the services that host them first.