CVE-2015-3218

The authentication_agent_new function in polkitbackend/polkitbackendinteractiveauthority.c in PolicyKit (aka polkit) before 0.113 allows local users to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and polkitd daemon crash) by calling RegisterAuthenticationAgent with an invalid object path.

Published: 2015-10-26 Last update: 2026-05-06 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2015-3218 is rated Low Risk (20.2/100): CVSS Low severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.41%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2015-3218

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.08% 0.41% +0.33%
2 2025-03-17 0.04% 0.08% +0.04%
3 2023-03-07 — 0.04% —

Full EPSS history (4 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2015-3218

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
2.1 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 3.9 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2015-3218

OS Trackers for CVE-2015-3218

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2015-3218 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (policykit-1), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2015-3218
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2015-3218
suse low — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2015-3218/
ubuntu low CVE-2015-3218 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (policykit-1), 17 status rows across 17 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, precise, trusty, upstream, utopic, vivid, wily, xenial, yakkety, zesty): not-affected 12, ignored 3, released 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2015-3218

NVD evaluator notes for CVE-2015-3218

Comment: <a href="http://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/476.html">CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference</a>

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2015-3218

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
polkit_project polkit <= 0.112 cpe:2.3:a:polkit_project:polkit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2015-3218

cvelogic Threat Intelligence