Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-2021-4034: Red Hat Polkit Out-of-Bounds Read and Write Vulnerability

CVE-2021-4034 · Severity: critical · CVSS 7.8 · Exploited in the wild · Published 2022-06-27

Technologies: StarWind Software Command Center, Red Hat Polkit. Vendors: Red Hat, Freedesktop.Org, Red Hat.

Executive brief

The pkexec utility in polkit incorrectly handles calling parameter counts, allowing an attacker to craft environment variables that induce the application to execute arbitrary code. This out-of-bounds read and write vulnerability enables a local unprivileged user to escalate their privileges to administrative (root) rights.

Affected products

  • Red Hat polkit pkexec utility
  • freedesktop.org polkit pkexec utility
  • StarWind Software Command Center 1.0 update3 build 5871
  • StarWind Software StarWind Virtual SAN v8 build 14338

Timeline

  • 2022-01-25: disclosed: Qualys security advisory published
  • 2022-06-27: kev added: Added to CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog
  • 2022-06-27: advisory: NVD publication date

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