CVE-2026-4897 Polkit: polkit: denial of service via unbounded input processing through standard input
A local attacker can cause a system-wide denial of service by sending excessively long input to the polkit-agent-helper-1 binary, triggering an out-of-memory condition.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-4897?
CVE-2026-4897 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Redhat Enterprise Linux, published on 26 Mar 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
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.
Weakness: CWE-770
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-4897?
It affects 3 products.
Linux distribution packages (23)
polkit AlmaLinux:10 | All versions | 125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit-devel AlmaLinux:10 | All versions | 125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit-docs AlmaLinux:10 | All versions | 125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit-libs AlmaLinux:10 | All versions | 125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2 | All versions | 0:125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit-debuginfo Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2 | All versions | 0:125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit-debugsource Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2 | All versions | 0:125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit-devel Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2 | All versions | 0:125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit-docs Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2 | All versions | 0:125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit-libs Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2 | All versions | 0:125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit-libs-debuginfo Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2 | All versions | 0:125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit Rocky Linux:10 | All versions | 0:125-4.el10_2.1 |
polkit SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | All versions | 121-150500.3.11.1 |
polkit SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | All versions | 121-150500.3.11.1 |
polkit SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 | All versions | 123-160000.3.1 |
polkit SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5 | All versions | 0.113-5.35.1 |
polkit SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.0 | All versions | 123-160000.3.1 |
polkit SUSE:Linux Micro 6.0 | All versions | 121-4.1 |
polkit SUSE:Linux Micro 6.1 | All versions | 121-slfo.1.1_3.1 |
expat SUSE:Linux Micro 6.2 | All versions | 2.7.1-160000.5.1 |
polkit SUSE:Linux Micro 6.2 | All versions | 123-160000.3.1 |
polkit openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | All versions | 121-150500.3.11.1 |
polkit openSUSE:Leap 16.0 | All versions | 123-160000.3.1 |
Products include Freedesktop Polkit, Redhat Enterprise Linux, Redhat Openshift Container Platform.
How do I fix CVE-2026-4897?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-4897 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-4897 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Redhat Enterprise Linux
Sources
Also known as ALSA-2026:59997, AZL-81558, CLSA-2026-1779368297, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-4897, GHSA-v4jf-wwp4-588q, MGASA-2026-0085 and 12 more.