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CVE-2026-41651

CVE-2026-41651

publishedCWE-367

PackageKit is a a D-Bus abstraction layer that allows the user to manage packages in a secure way using a cross-distro, cross-architecture API. PackageKit between and including versions 1.0.2 and 1.3.4 is vulnerable to a time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition on transaction flags that allows unprivileged users to install packages as root and thus leads to a local privilege escalation. This is patched in version 1.3.5. A local unprivileged user can install arbitrary RPM packages as root, including executing RPM scriptlets, without authentication. The vulnerability is a TOCTOU race condition on `transaction->cached_transaction_flags` combined with a silent state-machine guard that discards illegal backward transitions while leaving corrupted flags in place. Three bugs exist in `src/pk-transaction.c`: 1. Unconditional flag overwrite (line 4036): `InstallFiles()` writes caller-supplied flags to `transaction->cached_transaction_flags` without checking whether the transaction has already been authorized/started. A second call blindly overwrites the flags even while the transaction is RUNNING. 2. Silent state-transition rejection (lines 873–882): `pk_transaction_set_state()` silently discards backward state transitions (e.g. `RUNNING` → `WAITING_FOR_AUTH`) but the flag overwrite at step 1 already happened. The transaction continues running with corrupted flags. 3. Late flag read at execution time (lines 2273–2277): The scheduler's idle callback reads cached_transaction_flags at dispatch time, not at authorization time. If flags were overwritten between authorization and execution, the backend sees the attacker's flags.

Technical severity8.8 highCVSS 3.1 · NVD: [email protected]
Published2026-04-22Source updated 2026-11-11
Collected2026-11-121 attributed source

Fixes and workarounds

Fix

The reporting source identifies this reference as a patch. Check the advisory for affected versions and supported release branches.

Source: af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108

Affected products and versions

ProductVersionsAuthority
packagekit
packagekit_project 		≥ 1.0.2; < 1.3.5 (affected, custom) NVD

Version ranges are source assertions. Check the vendor advisory and your installed configuration before determining exposure.

NVD applicability configurations (1)

These expressions retain AND/OR operators, negation, and required environmental products. A listed product is not sufficient to establish exposure when additional conditions apply.

[
  {
    "negate": false,
    "nodes": [
      {
        "cpeMatch": [
          {
            "criteria": "cpe:2.3:a:packagekit_project:packagekit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
            "versionEndExcluding": "1.3.5",
            "versionStartIncluding": "1.0.2",
            "vulnerable": true
          }
        ],
        "negate": false,
        "operator": "OR"
      }
    ],
    "operator": "OR"
  }
]

CVSS assessments

Version / scoreVectorAuthority
3.1 / 8.8
high		 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:HNVD: [email protected]
3.1 / 8.8
high		 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:HNVD: 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c

Exploit evidence

References

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