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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2021-4115 json

There is a flaw in polkit which can allow an unprivileged user to cause polkit to crash, due to process file descriptor exhaustion.

published 4y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2021-33995

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 44%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

There is a flaw in polkit which can allow an unprivileged user to cause polkit to crash, due to process file descriptor exhaustion. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to availability. NOTE: Polkit process outage duration is tied to the failing process being reaped and a new one being spawned

Patch / fix

  • policykit-1 Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 0.105-32

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-4115

  • policykit-1 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 0.105-26ubuntu1.3

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-4115

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 8 0.115-13.el8_5.2
  • polkit-libs RHEL 8 0.115-13.el8_5.2

red hat advisories RHSA-2022:1546

  • polkit SLE Real Time 15 SP2, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP3, SLE Micro 5.1 +4 more 0.116-3.9.1
  • polkit SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5, SLE Workstation Extension 12 SP5 +1 more 0.113-5.27.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2022:0525-2SUSE-SU-2022:0525-1SUSE-SU-2022:0524-1

  • polkit openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.120-3.1
  • polkit openSUSE Leap 15.3 0.116-3.9.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11868-1openSUSE-SU-2022:0525-1

  • polkit AlmaLinux 8 0.115-13.el8_5.2
  • polkit-libs AlmaLinux 8 0.115-13.el8_5.2

almalinux advisories ALSA-2022:1546

  • polkit Rocky Linux 8 0.115-13.el8_5.2

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2022:1546

  • polkit Arch Linux 0.120-5

arch linux advisories AVG-2654

Is CVE-2021-4115 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-2021-4115 updated cvss 6.2

polkit: file descriptor leak allows an unprivileged user to cause a crash

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 8) polkit 0.115-13.el8_5.2, polkit-libs 0.115-13.el8_5.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:1546
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 polkit, polkit-desktop-policy Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 polkit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 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

Exploit prediction

0.53% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 44% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • gitlab.freedesktop.org https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/polkit/polkit/-/issues/141 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 2.1 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Affected products

  • n/a polkitd

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

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.