CVE-2021-4034

HighCVSS 7.8/10Known exploited (CISA KEV)Last modified Aug 15, 2026

Description

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.

Metrics

CVSS 3.1 7.8/10CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Weakness enumeration

Affected software

No affected versions have been published.

Timeline

Published
Jan 28, 2022
Last modified
Aug 15, 2026
Added to CISA KEV
Jun 27, 2022
NVD status
Analyzed

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CVE-2021-4034: High severity, CVSS 7.8 | Vulnix