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A vulnerability in PolicyKit (polkit) version 0.115 allows a local user with a UID greater than INT_MAX (typically 2147483647) to bypass authorization checks and execute any systemctl command. This occurs due to improper handling of integer overflows in UID comparisons, enabling privilege escalation.
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1 valid exploit after Mallory filtered fakes, detection scripts, and README-only repos.
This repository provides a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for CVE-2018-19788, a vulnerability in systemd (systemctl) and polkit on Linux systems. The vulnerability allows any user with a UID greater than INT_MAX (e.g., 4000000000) to execute arbitrary systemctl commands, effectively granting them root-level capabilities. The repository contains three files: a README.md with detailed exploitation steps and background, check.py (a script to check system and user suitability for the exploit), and poc.py (the main exploit script). The poc.py script, when run as a user with a high UID, provides an interactive shell-like interface that allows the attacker to execute arbitrary commands via systemd-run, redirecting output to files in /tmp. It also includes functionality to stop system logging (rsyslog) to evade detection and to clean up temporary files. The check.py script verifies if the system and user accounts are vulnerable by checking versions and user UIDs. Key fingerprintable endpoints include /etc/shadow (targeted for reading protected data), /etc/passwd (checked for high UID users), and /tmp (used for storing output files). The exploit is local and requires the attacker to have access to a user account with a high UID. The exploit is operational, providing a working PoC with an interactive shell for command execution and file exfiltration.
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