SECUFOCUSNOW
Home›CVE index›CVE-2021-4034
CISA KEV · Known exploitedHigh

CVE-2021-4034

Red Hat Polkit

A local privilege escalation vulnerability was found on polkit's pkexec utility. The pkexec application is a setuid tool designed to allow unprivileged users to run commands as privileged users according predefined policies. The current version of pkexec doesn't handle the calling parameters count correctly and ends trying to execute environment variables as commands. An attacker can leverage this by crafting environment variables in such a way it'll induce pkexec to execute arbitrary code. When successfully executed the attack can cause a local privilege escalation given unprivileged users...

CVSS
7.8
EPSS
94.9%
99.9% percentile
CISA KEV
Listed
Published
2022.01.29
PRIORITY ASSESSMENT

Immediate review

CISA has listed this vulnerability in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

Known exploitationConfirmed by CISA KEV
Exploit probability94.9%
Technical severityCVSS 7.8

Vulnerability overview

A local privilege escalation vulnerability was found on polkit's pkexec utility. The pkexec application is a setuid tool designed to allow unprivileged users to run commands as privileged users according predefined policies. The current version of pkexec doesn't handle the calling parameters count correctly and ends trying to execute environment variables as commands. An attacker can leverage this by crafting environment variables in such a way it'll induce pkexec to execute arbitrary code. When successfully executed the attack can cause a local privilege escalation given unprivileged users...

Affected product and versions

Product
Red Hat Polkit
Affected versions
all, < 121, 7.6, 7.7, 8.0, 7.0, 8.2, 8.4, 8.1, 6.0, 7.3, 7.4, 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 21.10, 15.0, 4.1, 15
Fixed versions
121, 3.3.0, 2.0

Recommended response sequence

Confirm exposure before applying a vendor-supported change.

Full remediation guide
CISA required action

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Due date: 2022.07.18
  1. 1
    Identify

    Confirm that Red Hat Polkit and an affected version are present.

  2. 2
    Prioritize

    Combine exploitation signals with asset exposure and business criticality.

  3. 3
    Remediate

    Follow the vendor advisory or supported update path and preserve rollback options.

  4. 4
    Verify

    Recheck the version, service health, access paths, and relevant logs.

Technical data

CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE
CWE-125, CWE-787
KEV added
2022.06.27
Ransomware use
미확인
CVE-2021-4034 — Red Hat Polkit | SECUFOCUS NOW