FedoraOperating system · Fedoraproject
CVE-2012-5617
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedgksu-polkit: permissive PolicyKit policy configuration file allows privilege escalation
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidencegksu-polkit ships with a permissive PolicyKit (.policy) configuration file that grants excessive privileges to users, allowing unprivileged local users to execute privileged operations and achieve privilege escalation.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
FedoraOperating system
= 18= 19all versionsCVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check if gksu-polkit package is installedOn Fedora systems, run: `rpm -q gksu-polkit` or `dnf list installed gksu-polkit`. On other systems, check for the package via your package manager.Affected if The package is installed on Fedora 18 or 19, or on any system with Gksu Polkit installed.
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Locate the PolicyKit configuration files for gksu-polkitSearch for .policy or .conf files related to gksu in standard PolicyKit directories: `/usr/share/polkit-1/actions/`, `/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/`, or by running: `find /usr/share/polkit-1 -name '*gksu*' -o -name '*policy*' 2>/dev/null`Affected if PolicyKit configuration files for gksu-polkit exist on the system.
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Examine the PolicyKit policy for overly permissive authorization rulesOpen the found .policy or .conf file and look for authorization settings such as `<allow_any>yes</allow_any>`, `<allow_inactive>yes</allow_inactive>`, `<allow_active>yes</allow_active>`, or any configuration that grants privileges to 'any' or 'all' users.Affected if The policy contains rules that grant privileged operations to any user (such as allow_any=yes) rather than restricting to specific users or groups.
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Verify if unprivileged users can execute the gksu-polkit toolAs an unprivileged (non-root) test user, attempt to run the gksu-polkit command or any application that uses it for privilege escalation, and observe if it executes successfully without proper authorization.Affected if Unprivileged local users can successfully execute privileged operations via gksu-polkit.
A user is affected if gksu-polkit is installed with a PolicyKit configuration that grants excessive privileges (allowing any or all users to perform privileged operations) rather than restricting authorization to specific trusted users or groups.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataRestrict the PolicyKit policy file to limit authorization to only trusted users or groups, or remove the overly permissive rules entirely.
Fix this in Fedora
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,984.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2012-5617 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2012-5617 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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