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Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-41651

high Nessus Plugin ID 309713

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Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

 - 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 873882): `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 22732277): 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. (CVE-2026-41651)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

See Also

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2026-41651

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 309713

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_41651.nasl

Version: 1.3

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 4/22/2026

Updated: 4/24/2026

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 7.3

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 9.3

Temporal Score: 7.9

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-41651

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.8

Temporal Score: 8.1

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:U/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:packagekit, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:packagekit-cron, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:packagekit-yum, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:packagekit-glib, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:packagekit-cron, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:packagekit-command-not-found, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9, cpe:/o:centos:centos:8, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:packagekit-yum-plugin, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:packagekit-gtk3-module, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:packagekit-gtk3-module, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:10, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:packagekit-yum-plugin, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:packagekit, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:packagekit-gstreamer-plugin, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:packagekit-glib-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:packagekit-command-not-found, cpe:/o:centos:centos:7, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:packagekit-glib-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:packagekit-glib, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:packagekit-gstreamer-plugin, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:packagekit-yum

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 4/22/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-41651