CVE-2021-4034: Red Hat Polkit Out-of-Bounds Read and Write Vulnerability
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.
Published Jan 28, 2022 · Updated Aug 15, 2026
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Advisory details
From the National Vulnerability Database. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
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 administrative rights on the target machine.
References
- https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/RHSB-2022-001
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2025869
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/pdf/ssa-330556.pdf
- https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/polkit/polkit/-/commit/a2bf5c9c83b6ae46cbd5c779d3055bff81ded683
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuapr2022.html
- https://www.qualys.com/2022/01/25/cve-2021-4034/pwnkit.txt
- https://www.secpod.com/blog/local-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-major-linux-distributions-cve-2021-4034/
- https://www.starwindsoftware.com/security/sw-20220818-0001/
- https://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc/?id=000020564
- https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/pwnkit-pkexec-lpe-cve-2021-4034
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2021-4034
How this page is made: the data panel comes from the GitHub Advisory Database, CISA’s KEV catalog, the NVD and FIRST EPSS, and updates twice a day. No analysis has been written for this entry yet. Methodology
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