Description
A flaw was found in PackageKit. PackageKit skips the polkit authorization check for transactions carrying the SIMULATE (dry-run) flag. In the dnf5 backend, the RepoRemove handler ignores that contract and always executes the real transaction because its guard is written as (role == REPO_REMOVE || !SIMULATE), which is always true for RepoRemove. An unprivileged local user can therefore perform a genuine package uninstall while claiming to simulate. This vulnerability only affects systems using PackageKit with the dnf5 backend.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | PackageKit | 1.3.4 – < 1.4.0 | 1.4.0 |
| Fedora | Fedora | 1.3.4 – < 1.4.0 | 1.4.0 |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | — | — |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | — | — |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | — | — |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | — | — |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | — | — |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | packagekit | 1.4.0-1 | — |
| Debian 13 | packagekit | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 12 | packagekit | No fix yet | — |
openSUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| openSUSE Tumbleweed | PackageKit | 1.4.0-1.1 | openSUSE-SU-2026:11855-1 |
Advisories 2
- openSUSE-SU-2026:11855-1 PackageKit-1.4.0-1.1 on GA media SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · Sep 24, 2026
- WID-SEC-2026-3290 PackageKit: Mehrere Schwachstellen BSI CERT-Bund (WID) · Sep 14, 2026