CVE-2021-3560

Exp

It was found that polkit could be tricked into bypassing the credential checks for D-Bus requests, elevating the privileges of the requestor to the root user. This flaw could be used by an unprivileged local attacker to, for example, create a new local administrator. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

Published: 2022-02-16 Last update: 2025-11-06 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-3560 is rated Critical Active Threat (91.4/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 9.10%, 93th percentile). CISA KEV confirms active exploitation (added 2023-05-12) affecting Red Hat / Polkit. a weakness (CWE-754) Unauthenticated remote administrative access may be possible. EPSS rose +2.69% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. The CISA remediation deadline has passed—treat as an emergency patch priority.

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

CISA KEV Record for CVE-2021-3560

Name: Red Hat Polkit Incorrect Authorization Vulnerability · CISA KEV detail

Exploit added: 2023-05-12

Action due: 2023-06-02

Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2021-3560

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
50011 exploit_db edb 2021-06-15 Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2021-3560

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 2026-06-01 6.41% 9.10% +2.69%
2 2026-05-22 9.68% 6.41% -3.27%
3 2026-05-21 — 9.68% —

Full EPSS history (69 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-3560

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 1.8 5.9 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
7.2 2.0 HIGH
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C 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:C)
Complete confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:C)
Complete integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:C)
Complete availability impact.
 3.9 10.0 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-3560

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-3560

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2021-3560: 1 source package rows (polkit); 8 state rows across 8 repos (3.12-main, 3.17-community, 3.18-community, 3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 7, open 1. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2021-3560
debian not yet assigned CVE-2021-3560 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-2021-3560
gentoo high CVE-2021-3560: 1 GLSA(s) (202107-31), 1 atom(s) (sys-auth/polkit); latest impact high. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2021-3560
redhat high — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-3560
suse high CVE-2021-3560 severity important: SUSE including 293 source package names (PolicyKit, amazon/suse-sles-15-sp1-chost-byos-v20210304-hvm-ssd-x86_64, …), 702 product×package rows across 197 product lines (Container rancher/elemental-teal-rt/5.3, Container rancher/elemental-teal-rt/5.4, … (197 product lines)): Fixed 467, Known Affected 231, Known Not Affected 4. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-3560/
ubuntu high CVE-2021-3560 high priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (policykit-1), 9 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 5, not-affected 3, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-3560

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-3560

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
polkit_project polkit < 0.119 cpe:2.3:a:polkit_project:polkit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 11.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 20.04 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat virtualization 4.0 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:virtualization:4.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat virtualization_host 4.0 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:virtualization_host:4.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat openshift_container_platform 4.7 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:openshift_container_platform:4.7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-3560

cvelogic Threat Intelligence