Medium [CVE-2025-7519] Polkit: xml policy file with a large number of nested elements may lead to out-of-bounds write
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2025-7519 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
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Summary
A flaw was found in polkit. When processing an XML policy with 32 or more nested elements in depth, an out-of-bounds write can be triggered.
This issue can lead to a crash or other unexpected behavior, and arbitrary code execution is not discarded. To exploit this flaw, a high-privilege account is needed as it's required to place the malicious policy file properly.
This vulnerability was rated with a Moderate severity by the Red Hat Product Security team. This happens because the directories that hold Polkit's policy files are owned by the root user, drastically reducing the attack surface for this vulnerability.
Weakness: CWE-787. Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9; Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.
Will not fix / out of support: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat package: polkit.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 59 minutes ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 59 minutes ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- There's no known mitigation to this vulnerability other than avoiding the implementation of unknown or untrusted polkit policy files to the system.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 59 minutes ago·verify at source
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