vulnerability
Arch Linux: Privilege escalation (CVE-2021-4034)
| Severity | CVSS | Published | Added | Modified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C) | Jan 28, 2022 | Jul 11, 2025 | Mar 25, 2026 |
Severity
7
CVSS
(AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C)
Published
Jan 28, 2022
Added
Jul 11, 2025
Modified
Mar 25, 2026
Description
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.
Solution
arch-linux-upgrade-latest
References
Rapid7 Labs
2026 Global Threat Landscape Report
The predictive window has collapsed. Exploitation follows disclosure in days. See how attackers are accelerating and how to stay ahead.