What is CVE-2018-1116?

CVE-2018-1116 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Polkit Project, classified under Improper Authorization. CVSS score: 4.4/10. Published 2018-07-10.

How severe is CVE-2018-1116?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.4 out of 10.

Auth bypass in Polkit Project

CVE-2018-1116

A flaw was found in polkit before version 0.116. The implementation of the polkit_backend_interactive_authority_check_authorization function in polkitd allows to test for authentication and trigger authentication of unrelated processes owned by other users. This may result in a local DoS and information disclosure.

Published 2018-07-10 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 4.4 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:L.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.012 (66.9th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 67th percentile — 66.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.012 · newest: 0.012 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Polkit Project
[Unknown] Polkit — versions polkit 0.116
Canonical Ubuntu Linux — versions 12.04
Debian Linux — versions 8.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (Patch, Issue Tracking)
usn.ubuntu.com/3717-2/ (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
cgit.freedesktop.org/polkit/commit/ (Patch, Third Party Advisory)
lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/07/msg00042.html (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/201908-14 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-1116?: CVE-2018-1116 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Polkit Project, classified under Improper Authorization. CVSS score: 4.4/10. Published 2018-07-10.
How severe is CVE-2018-1116?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.4 out of 10.