PackageKit vulnerable to TOCTOU Race on Transaction Flags leads to arbitrary package installation as root
Title source: cnaExploitation Summary
EIP tracks 11 public exploits for CVE-2026-41651. PoCs published by Vozec, adminlove520, dinosn.
AI-analyzed exploit summary This repository contains a functional exploit for CVE-2026-41651, a TOCTOU race condition in PackageKit's transaction handler, allowing local privilege escalation to root. The exploit leverages a chain of three bugs to bypass authentication and install arbitrary packages as root.
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.
Exploits (11)
This repository contains a functional exploit for CVE-2026-41651, a TOCTOU race condition in PackageKit's transaction handler, allowing local privilege escalation to root. The exploit leverages a chain of three bugs to bypass authentication and install arbitrary packages as root.
This repository contains a functional privilege escalation exploit for CVE-2026-41651, targeting a race condition in PackageKit. The exploit leverages D-Bus calls to manipulate package installations, resulting in a SUID binary creation.
This repository contains a functional exploit for CVE-2026-41651, a local privilege escalation vulnerability in PackageKit. The exploit leverages a TOCTOU race condition in the D-Bus transaction handling to achieve root access.
This repository contains a functional exploit for CVE-2026-41651, a TOCTOU (Time-Of-Check to Time-Of-Use) race condition vulnerability in PackageKit. The exploit leverages a race condition to bypass polkit authorization checks and achieve local privilege escalation by installing a malicious .deb package with a root-owned post-installation script.
This repository contains a functional local privilege escalation (LPE) exploit for CVE-2026-41651, targeting a TOCTOU race condition in PackageKit versions 1.0.2 to 1.3.4. The exploit leverages D-Bus communication to bypass polkit authentication and execute arbitrary commands as root via a malicious postinst script in a crafted .deb package.
This repository contains a functional privilege escalation exploit for CVE-2026-41651, targeting a TOCTOU (Time-of-Check Time-of-Use) vulnerability in PackageKit. The exploit leverages D-Bus calls to manipulate transaction states, allowing an attacker to escalate privileges by installing a malicious package with SUID permissions.
This repository contains a functional privilege escalation exploit for CVE-2026-41651, targeting a race condition in PackageKit via D-Bus calls to install malicious DEB packages. The exploit creates a SUID root shell by leveraging a TOCTOU (Time-of-Check Time-of-Use) vulnerability in the package installation process.
This repository contains a functional exploit for CVE-2026-41651, a TOCTOU race condition in PackageKit that allows local privilege escalation to root. The exploit leverages a D-Bus race condition to overwrite transaction parameters and execute arbitrary code as root.
The repository contains a safe vulnerability checker for CVE-2026-41651, a TOCTOU race condition in PackageKit, which detects vulnerable versions but does not exploit the vulnerability.
The repository contains functional exploit code for CVE-2026-41651, a privilege escalation vulnerability in PackageKit. The exploit leverages a race condition in D-Bus transactions to install a malicious package with a post-install script that sets the SUID bit on /bin/bash, granting root access.
References (6)
Scores
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H