Vulnerability Monitor

The vendors, products, and vulnerabilities you care about

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.

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 4.4, requiring local system access to exploit with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts limited data confidentiality, and limited availability for affected systems. Impacting 3 products from debian, from canonical, from polkit_project organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

First disclosed in 2018, this vulnerability was reported during a period defined by widespread IoT adoption challenges, mobile security concerns, and the emergence of advanced persistent threat (APT) techniques. Contemporary mitigation strategies focused on secure development practices and third-party component vetting.

Published

2018-07-10T19:29:00.290

Last Modified

2024-11-21T03:59:12.913

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 4.4 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:P

Access Vector: LOCAL
Access Complexity: LOW
Authentication: NONE
Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
Integrity Impact: NONE
Availability Impact: PARTIAL

Exploitability Score

3.9

Impact Score

4.9

Weaknesses

Type: Secondary
CWE-285
Type: Primary
CWE-862

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Operating System	debian	debian_linux	8.0	Yes
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	12.04	Yes
Application	polkit_project	polkit	< 0.115	Yes

References

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2018-1116 Issue Tracking, Patch ([email protected])
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/polkit/commit/?id=bc7ffad5364 Patch, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/07/msg00042.html Mailing List, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201908-14 Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3717-2/ Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2018-1116 Issue Tracking, Patch (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/polkit/commit/?id=bc7ffad5364 Patch, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/07/msg00042.html Mailing List, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201908-14 Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3717-2/ Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For debian's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.