Skip to main content

Polkit CVE-2015-3256

MEDIUM
Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls (CWE-264)
2015-10-26 secalert@redhat.com
Privilege Escalation Buffer Overflow Denial Of Service Opensuse Polkit Polkit Project
4.6
CVSS 2.0 · NVD
View

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
CWE-264
ASVS 5.0
V8 - Authorization Permission and access control
MITRE ATT&CK

1 technique across 1 tactic: Privilege Escalation

The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up.

Sign in to read
Impact

CVSS score of 4.6 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: local attack vector, low complexity. EPSS exploitation probability: 0.08%.
Exploit ScenarioDerived

Successful exploitation could compromise the medium-severity affected system.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
No patch listed yet 0.1% exploitation probability (EPSS)

Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.

Alert me

AnalysisAI

PolicyKit (aka polkit) before 0.113 allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and polkitd daemon crash) and possibly gain privileges via unspecified vectors, related to. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.6), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.

RemediationAI

No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Apply vendor patches when available. Implement network segmentation and monitoring as interim mitigations.

Affects your stack

Find out whether the stacks and servers you run are on an affected version.

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Sign in to check
Technical ContextAI · show details

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-264. PolicyKit (aka polkit) before 0.113 allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and polkitd daemon crash) and possibly gain privileges via unspecified vectors, related to "javascript rule evaluation." Affected products include: Polkit Project Polkit, Opensuse. Version information: before 0.113.

Know when Polkit gets its next vulnerability

  • Watch products and get an email when something new is published
  • Check this CVE against your own stack and servers
  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
Continue with Google Continue with GitHub

No credit card · 7-day full trial

Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY 4.6 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Confidentiality
P
Integrity
P
Availability
P

DescriptionCVE.org

PolicyKit (aka polkit) before 0.113 allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and polkitd daemon crash) and possibly gain privileges via unspecified vectors, related to "javascript rule evaluation."

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.1%
Top 77% exploitable
Data Quality
3 sources
Confidence: Low
NVD CVE.org EPSS

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.1%
Patch available No
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Defer
Exploitation· derived
None
System Exposure· derived
Small
Automatable· derived
No
Human Impact· derived
Medium

Priority Score

23
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +23
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Privilege Escalation HIGH

Privilege escalation occurs when an attacker leverages flaws in access control mechanisms to gain permissions beyond what they were originally granted.

Buffer Overflow HIGH

A buffer overflow occurs when a program writes more data to a memory buffer than it was allocated to hold, causing the excess data to spill into adjacent memory regions.

Denial of Service MEDIUM

Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.

Affected Products (CPE)CVE.org

cpe:2.3:a:polkit_project:polkit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:opensuse:13.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:opensuse:13.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

More in Polkit

View all
CVE-2018-19788 HIGH POC
8.8 Dec 03

A flaw was found in PolicyKit (aka polkit) 0.115 that allows a user with a uid greater than INT_MAX to successfully exec
CVE-2016-2568 HIGH
7.8 Feb 13

pkexec, when used with --user nonpriv, allows local users to escape to the parent session via a crafted TIOCSTI ioctl ca
CVE-2013-4288 HIGH
7.2 Oct 03

Race condition in PolicyKit (aka polkit) allows local users to bypass intended PolicyKit restrictions and gain privilege
CVE-2019-6133 MEDIUM
6.7 Jan 11

In PolicyKit (aka polkit) 0.115, the "start time" protection mechanism can be bypassed because fork() is not atomic, and
CVE-2026-4897 MEDIUM
5.5 Mar 26

Polkit's polkit-agent-helper-1 setuid binary fails to bound input length on stdin, allowing local authenticated users to
CVE-2015-3255 MEDIUM
4.6 Oct 26

The polkit_backend_action_pool_init function in polkitbackend/polkitbackendactionpool.c in PolicyKit (aka polkit) before
CVE-2015-4625 MEDIUM
4.6 Oct 26

Integer overflow in the authentication_agent_new_cookie function in PolicyKit (aka polkit) before 0.113 allows local use
CVE-2018-1116 MEDIUM
4.4 Jul 10

A flaw was found in polkit before version 0.116. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.4), this vulnerability is low attack comp
CVE-2015-3218 LOW
2.1 Oct 26

The authentication_agent_new function in polkitbackend/polkitbackendinteractiveauthority.c in PolicyKit (aka polkit) bef

Same weakness CWE-264 – Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls

View all
CVE-2013-0422 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2016-10372 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2014-9583 CRITICAL POC
10.0
CVE-2012-0297 CRITICAL POC
10.0
CVE-2015-7709 CRITICAL POC
10.0
CVE-2014-0514 CRITICAL POC
9.3
CVE-2013-6955 CRITICAL POC
10.0
CVE-2012-0299 CRITICAL POC
10.0

Same technique Privilege Escalation

View all
CVE-2024-0012 CRITICAL POC
9.3
CVE-2025-47812 CRITICAL POC
10.0
CVE-2013-0632 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2024-9474 MEDIUM POC
6.9
CVE-2017-5689 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2021-20021 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2017-12635 CRITICAL POC
9.8

References

Advisories & patches
REF http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/polkit-devel/2015-July/000432.html REF http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2015-10/msg00010.html REF http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-updates/2015-11/msg00042.html REF http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-0189.html REF http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/linuxbulletinjan2016-2867209.html REF http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/77356 REF http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1035023 REF https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1245684

Search Externally

GitHub PoC Exploit-DB PacketStorm Snyk Rapid7 Nuclei Templates Trickest PoC
Back

This site uses cookies essential for authentication and security. No tracking or analytics cookies are used. Privacy Policy