Parallels Desktop Flaw Lets Non-Admin Mac Users Gain Root, but Intel Macs Can't Install Fix
Parallels Desktop for Mac has a flaw that lets an ordinary local account run code as root, the highest level of access on a Mac, software company JFrog said this week. The attack needs code already running on the machine as a normal user, so it does not work over the network. JFrog says the fix is in Parallels Desktop 27, a version that Intel Macs cannot install. Yuval Moravchick, who leads JFrog's vulnerability research team, published the finding on Tuesday and calls it ParaShells. The flaw is tracked as CVE-2026-90894 , an identifier JFrog assigned itself, and JFrog rates it 7.8 out of 10. Parallels Desktop runs Windows and Linux inside virtual machines on a Mac. It installs a background service called prl_disp_service that runs as root, because its work includes setting up host networking and unpacking virtual machine packages. The flaw is on the Mac side of the product, so the machine at risk is the Mac itself rather than the virtual machines on...
Sep 16, 2026