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OpenAdvisories
High ALAS2-2026-3282 1 CVE

Important: PackageKit security update (Amazon Linux 2)

Published May 11, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026

Summary

Package updates are available for Amazon Linux 2 that fix the following vulnerabilities: CVE-2026-41651: 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 873-882): `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 2273-2277): 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.

Fixed packages 10

ReleasePackageFixed in
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit-command-not-found 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit-cron 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit-debuginfo 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit-glib 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit-glib-devel 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit-gtk3-module 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit-yum 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4
Amazon Linux · 2 PackageKit-yum-plugin 0:1.1.5-2.amzn2.0.4

Vulnerabilities 1

  • High 8.8
    CVE-2026-41651 Public exploit

    PackageKit vulnerable to TOCTOU Race on Transaction Flags leads to arbitrary package installation as root

    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) rac…

References

  • web
    https://alas.aws.amazon.com/cve/html/CVE-2026-41651.html