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Fencer Intel
high 8.8

CVE-2018-19788 in the critical feed json

A flaw was found in PolicyKit (aka polkit) 0.115 that allows a user with a uid greater than INT_MAX to successfully execute any systemctl c…

published 7y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2018-11469

cvss
8.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
11.6%
EPSS 11.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 96%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A flaw was found in PolicyKit (aka polkit) 0.115 that allows a user with a uid greater than INT_MAX to successfully execute any systemctl command.

Patch / fix

  • policykit-1 Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 0.105-23

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-19788

  • policykit-1 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 0.105-4ubuntu3.14.04.5
  • policykit-1 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 0.105-14.1ubuntu0.4
  • policykit-1 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 0.105-20ubuntu0.18.04.4

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2018-19788

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • polkit RHEL 7 0.112-22.el7
  • polkit RHEL 7.6 EUS 0.112-18.el7_6.2

red hat advisories RHSA-2019:3232RHSA-2019:2046

  • polkit SLES 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP2-BCL +15 more 0.113-5.15.1
  • polkit SLE Module for Basesystem 15 0.114-3.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2019:0019-2SUSE-SU-2019:0019-1SUSE-SU-2019:0015-1

  • polkit openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.118-7.2
  • polkit openSUSE Leap 15.0 0.114-lp150.2.6.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11180-1openSUSE-SU-2019:0010-1

  • polkit Alpine 3.7, Alpine 3.6 0.105-r8
  • polkit Alpine 3.9, Alpine 3.8 0.105-r9

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2018-19788

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • polkit Arch Linux 0.115+24+g5230646-1

arch linux advisories AVG-828

Is CVE-2018-19788 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2018-19788 updated cvss 7.0

polkit: Improper handling of user with uid > INT_MAX leading to authentication bypass

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 polkit, polkit-desktop-policy Red Hat Virtualization 4 rhvm-appliance, redhat-virtualization-host-image-update
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Do not allow negative UIDs or UIDs greater than 2147483647.”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) polkit 0.112-22.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) polkit-docs 0.112-22.el7, polkit-devel 0.112-22.el7, polkit-debuginfo 0.112-22.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) polkit 0.112-22.el7
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not allow negative UIDs or UIDs greater than 2147483647.” RHSA-2019:2046
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode EUS (v. 7.6) polkit 0.112-18.el7_6.2
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not allow negative UIDs or UIDs greater than 2147483647.” RHSA-2019:3232
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) polkit-docs 0.112-22.el7, polkit-devel 0.112-22.el7, polkit-debuginfo 0.112-22.el7
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not allow negative UIDs or UIDs greater than 2147483647.” RHSA-2019:2046
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional EUS (v. 7.6) polkit-docs 0.112-18.el7_6.2, polkit-devel 0.112-18.el7_6.2, polkit-debuginfo 0.112-18.el7_6.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server (v. 7) polkit 0.112-18.el7_6.2
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not allow negative UIDs or UIDs greater than 2147483647.” RHSA-2019:3232
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) polkit 0.112-22.el7
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not allow negative UIDs or UIDs greater than 2147483647.” RHSA-2019:2046
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server EUS (v. 7.6) polkit 0.112-18.el7_6.2
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not allow negative UIDs or UIDs greater than 2147483647.” RHSA-2019:3232
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) polkit 0.112-22.el7
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not allow negative UIDs or UIDs greater than 2147483647.” RHSA-2019:2046
show 1 more
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 polkit, polkit-libs
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2y ago

Exploit prediction

11.58% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 96% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • gitlab.freedesktop.org https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/polkit/polkit/issues/74 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 8.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 9.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.