CVE-2021-4034 (GCVE-0-2021-4034)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5
Published
2022-01-28 00:00
Modified
2025-10-21 23:15
CWE
Summary
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.
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
n/a polkit Version: all
CISA Known Exploited Vulnerability
Data from the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog

Date added: 2022-06-27

Due date: 2022-07-18

Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Used in ransomware: Unknown

Notes: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-4034

Show details on NVD website


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