PackageKit vulnerable to TOCTOU Race on Transaction Flags leads to arbitrary package installation as root
Default status is the baseline for the product, each version can override it (e.g. patched versions marked unaffected).
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| PackageKit | PackageKit | affected |
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| Packagekit Project | Packagekit |
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| Source | ID | Title |
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Ubuntu USN |
USN-8195-3 | PackageKit vulnerability |
No CVSS v4.0
No CVSS v3.0
No CVSS v2
This CVE is not in the KEV list.
Exploit prediction score: < 1% (0.546% probability within 30 days)
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Packagekit Project
Packagekit Project packagekit |
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| CPEs | cpe:2.3:a:packagekit_project:packagekit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | |
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Packagekit Project
Packagekit Project packagekit |
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| Description | 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. | |
| Title | PackageKit vulnerable to TOCTOU Race on Transaction Flags leads to arbitrary package installation as root | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-367 | |
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| Metrics |
cvssV3_1
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