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Case File

CVE-2021-4034

HIGH · CVSS 7.8 EPSS 94.92% CISA KEV · Actively Exploited Public Exploit

Source: NVD + CISA KEV + EPSS (historical backfill) · Published 2022-01-28 · Last synced 2026-08-04

CyberRota Analysis

AI analysis pending.

Public Exploit Signal

A public exploit, PoC, GitHub repository or Metasploit reference was detected for this CVE.

Note: these links are listed for security research and verification purposes only.

CISA KEV Details

Status: This CVE is listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

Ransomware use: Unknown

Added to KEV: 2022-06-27

Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CVE
CVE-2021-4034
Severity
HIGH
CVSS
7.8
EPSS
94.92%

Original NVD 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.