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Polkit CVE-2026-4897

| EUVDEUVD-2026-16214 MEDIUM
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770)
2026-03-26 secalert@redhat.com
Denial Of Service Polkit Openshift Container Platform Enterprise Linux
5.5
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
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Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY
5.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
SUSE
MEDIUM
qualitative
Red Hat
5.5 MEDIUM
qualitative

Primary rating from NVD.

CVSS VectorNVD

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

4
Patch released
Mar 31, 2026 - 21:13 nvd
Patch available
EUVD ID Assigned
Mar 26, 2026 - 15:22 euvd
EUVD-2026-16214
Analysis Generated
Mar 26, 2026 - 15:22 vuln.today
CVE Published
Mar 26, 2026 - 15:16 nvd
MEDIUM 5.5

DescriptionCVE.org

A flaw was found in polkit. A local user can exploit this by providing a specially crafted, excessively long input to the polkit-agent-helper-1 setuid binary via standard input (stdin). This unbounded input can lead to an out-of-memory (OOM) condition, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) for the system.

AnalysisAI

Polkit's polkit-agent-helper-1 setuid binary fails to bound input length on stdin, allowing local authenticated users to trigger out-of-memory conditions and deny system availability. An attacker with local login privileges can supply excessively long input to exhaust memory resources, causing a system-wide denial of service. No public exploit code or active exploitation has been confirmed at the time of analysis.

Technical ContextAI

Polkit is a system authorization framework used across Linux distributions (including Red Hat and SUSE) to delegate privilege escalation decisions. The polkit-agent-helper-1 binary is a setuid-root helper component that handles authentication requests from the polkit daemon. The vulnerability stems from CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling), where the stdin input stream is read without enforcing maximum buffer or memory consumption limits. When a local user provides input larger than available system memory, the process attempts unbounded allocation, exhausting RAM and triggering OOM killer events that can crash critical system services. This affects the polkit authentication pipeline and represents a privilege escalation helper attack surface.

RemediationAI

Consult the Red Hat security advisory (https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-4897) and corresponding SUSE advisory for exact patched version numbers and upgrade instructions. Apply the vendor-released patch immediately to all systems running polkit with local user accounts. As an interim mitigation, restrict local shell access to trusted administrators only, disable polkit-agent-helper-1 if not required for the deployment use case, and monitor system memory and OOM events for signs of exploitation attempts. Implement resource limits (ulimit, cgroups) on user sessions to cap memory allocation per process, reducing the DoS impact scope.

More in Polkit

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CVE-2018-19788 HIGH POC
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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-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-2015-3256 MEDIUM
4.6 Oct 26

PolicyKit (aka polkit) before 0.113 allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and polkitd daemo
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-770 – Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

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CVE-2017-8779 HIGH POC
7.5
CVE-2025-53521 CRITICAL POC
9.3
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7.5
CVE-2025-26682 HIGH
7.5
CVE-2025-26466 MEDIUM
5.9
CVE-2020-37067 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2021-47875 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2023-38507 CRITICAL POC
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Same technique Denial Of Service

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CVE-2015-5119 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2011-2462 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2011-0611 HIGH POC
8.8
CVE-2012-1889 HIGH POC
8.8
CVE-2012-0507 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2014-1761 HIGH POC
7.8
CVE-2015-5122 CRITICAL POC
9.8
CVE-2011-0609 HIGH POC
7.8

Vendor StatusVendor

Debian

policykit-1
Release Status Fixed Version Urgency
bullseye, bullseye (security) vulnerable 0.105-31+deb11u1 -
bookworm vulnerable 122-3 -
trixie vulnerable 126-2 -
forky, sid vulnerable 127-2 -
(unstable) fixed (unfixed) -

SUSE

Severity: Medium
Product Status
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Fixed
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP7 Fixed
SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.2 Fixed
SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 Fixed
SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 Fixed

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CVE-2026-4897 vulnerability details – vuln.today
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