CVE-2021-4034A local privilege escalation vulnerability was found on polkit's pkexec utility.
Updated under an hour ago ()
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It affects polkit_project polkit and 29 other products. Add what you run to find out whether that includes you.
CISA lists it as known exploited since Jun 27, 2022; federal agencies had to remediate by Jul 18, 2022, and it is known to be used in ransomware. Treat that date as your deadline.
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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.
- CVSS
- 7.8 HIGH (v3.1, CISA ADP)CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Weakness (CWE)
- CWE-787
- Known exploited
- Added to CISA KEV Jun 27, 2022; federal remediation due Jul 18, 2022; known ransomware useApply updates per vendor instructions.
- EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)
- 94.92% (percentile 100)
- Assigned by
- redhat
- NVD analysis
- Analyzed
- Record last updated
- Aug 14, 2026
- First seen by InfoSec Signals
- Oct 9, 2026
The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry
The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.