{"cve":"CVE-2026-41651","nvd":{"published":"2026-04-22T14:17:04.617","modified":"2026-07-15T02:21:18.760","status":"Modified","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.\n\nA 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`:\n1. 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.\n2. 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.\n3. 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.","cvss_v4":null,"cvss_v3":{"version":"3.1","vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H","score":8.8},"cwes":["CWE-367"],"references":["https://github.com/PackageKit/PackageKit/blob/04057883189efa225a7c785591aa87cb299782f8/src/pk-transaction.c#L2273-L2277","https://github.com/PackageKit/PackageKit/blob/04057883189efa225a7c785591aa87cb299782f8/src/pk-transaction.c#L4036","https://github.com/PackageKit/PackageKit/blob/04057883189efa225a7c785591aa87cb299782f8/src/pk-transaction.c#L873-L882","https://github.com/PackageKit/PackageKit/security/advisories/GHSA-f55j-vvr9-69xv","https://github.security.telekom.com/2026/04/pack2theroot-linux-local-privilege-escalation.html"],"products":["packagekit_project:packagekit"],"source":"nvd","synced_at":"2026-10-19T22:30:49.762551342+00:00"},"epss":{"cve":"CVE-2026-41651","score":0.0046,"percentile":0.39853,"date":"2026-10-31"},"kev":null,"osv":[],"attribution":["This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.","EPSS scores: FIRST Exploit Prediction Scoring System, https://www.first.org/epss","Known exploited vulnerabilities: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","Package advisories: OSV (https://osv.dev), from the GitHub Advisory Database, PyPA, Go, RustSec and other ecosystem databases, under CC-BY 4.0 or CC0","CVE records: the CVE Program's CVE List (https://www.cve.org), under its terms of use (https://www.cve.org/Legal/TermsOfUse). CVE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation; this product is not affiliated with the CVE Program."]}