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HIGH

CVE-2026-41651

CVSS v3

8.8

HIGH

EPSS Score

0.5 %

exploit probability, as of 2026-10-19

CISA KEV

No

known exploited

Exploitation

—

SSVC status

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Affected and fixed versions

Packages from OSV.dev and products from the vendors' CSAF advisories.

version not verifiedVersions not verified: read as OSV.dev and the vendors publish them, not checked against each vendor's release list.

Packages

  • PackageKitAlmaLinux:10all versions · fixed in 1.2.8-8.el10_2and 5 other packages
  • PackageKitAlmaLinux:9all versions · fixed in 1.2.6-2.el9_8and 5 other packages
  • PackageKitAlmaLinux:8all versions · fixed in 1.1.12-8.el8_10and 6 other packages

Vendor advisories

  • CVE-2026-41651 Red Hat Product Security941 products fixed

    PackageKit: race condition vulnerability leads to arbitrary package installation as root

  • RHSA-2026:22146 Red Hat Product Security63 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: PackageKit security update

  • RHSA-2026:19601 Red Hat Product Security72 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: PackageKit security update

  • RHSA-2026:19454 Red Hat Product Security86 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: PackageKit security update

  • RHSA-2026:19354 Red Hat Product Security86 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: PackageKit security update

  • RHSA-2026:19141 Red Hat Product Security72 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: PackageKit security update

8 more advisories

Full record on NVD

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.

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Published
2026-04-22

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-41651?

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.

Is CVE-2026-41651 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2026-41651 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 0.5% on 2026-10-19, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2026-41651?

CVE-2026-41651 has a CVSS v3 base score of 8.8 (HIGH severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H.

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