Resource exhaustion in Freedesktop Polkit
CVE-2026-4897
A flaw was found in polkit. A local user can exploit this by providing a specially crafted, excessively long input to the `polkit-agent-helper-1` setuid binary via standard input (stdin). This unbounded input can lead to an out-of-memory (OOM) condition, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) for the system.
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.002 (3.6th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 4th percentile — 3.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000
Affected products
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
- access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-4897 (vdb-entry, Vendor Advisory)
- bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (issue-tracking, Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory)
- access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:59997 (vendor-advisory)
- access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:66287 (vendor-advisory)
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-4897?
- CVE-2026-4897 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Freedesktop Polkit, classified under Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2026-03-26.
- How severe is CVE-2026-4897?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.