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CVE-2021-4115

21
FAUCET Score

CVE-2021-4115 describes a flaw in polkit that allows an unprivileged local user to trigger a denial-of-service by causing polkit to crash due to file descriptor exhaustion. This vulnerability affects various Linux distributions including Canonical, Debian, Fedora, Oracle, and Red Hat. With a CVSS score of 5.5 (MEDIUM), the attack requires local access and has low complexity, primarily impacting system availability. There is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code, or significant community discussion surrounding this CVE.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
0.117CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:polkit_project:polkit:0.117:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
8.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
34CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:34:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
35CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:35:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
20.04CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

5.5MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
NONE
Integrity Impact
NONE
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
1.8
Impact Score
3.6
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
0.53%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
41.6%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-26
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0053 is in the 93rd percentile among its peer group of 15,938 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.0 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.1 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (2)

oraclepatch availablevia nvd_reference
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8Fixed in: polkit-0:0.115-13.el8_5.2
View patch

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2021-4115Moderate

polkit: file descriptor leak allows an unprivileged user to cause a crash

Feb 14, 2022

References

packetstormsecurity.com / files/172849/polkit-File-Descriptor-Exhaustion.html
access.redhat.com / security/cve/cve-2021-4115
Third Party Advisory
gitlab.com / redhat/centos-stream/rpms/polkit/-/merge_requests/6/diffs
PatchThird Party Advisory
gitlab.freedesktop.org / polkit/polkit/-/issues/141
ExploitIssue TrackingPatchThird Party Advisory
lists.fedoraproject.org / archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VGKWCBS6IDZYYDYM2WIWJM5BL7QQTWPF
oracle.com / security-alerts/cpujul2022.html
PatchThird Party Advisory