Security News > 2022 > January > Twelve-Year-Old Linux Vulnerability Discovered and Patched
2022-01-31 12:18
Linux users on Tuesday got a major dose of bad news - a 12-year-old vulnerability in a system tool called Polkit gives attackers unfettered root privileges on machines running most major distributions of the open source operating system.
Previously called PolicyKit, Polkit manages system-wide privileges in Unix-like OSes.
It provides a mechanism for nonprivileged processes to safely interact with privileged processes.
It also allows users to execute commands with high privileges by using a component called pkexec, followed by the command.
Of course, this vulnerability doesn't give attackers access to the system.
If they get access, this vulnerability gives them root privileges.