Qualys researchers have identified two significant local privilege escalation vulnerabilities in major Linux distributions, highlighting potential risks for system security.
The vulnerabilities, tagged as CVE-2025-6018 and CVE-2025-6019, allow malicious actors to gain root privileges through two common Linux components: SSH and libblockdev. CVE-2025-6018 enables an attacker to impersonate users via SSH, while CVE-2025-6019 can exploit the udisks service to escalate access to root privileges.
Security researcher Pumpkin Chang has elaborated on these vulnerabilities in his blog, explaining how D-Bus and Polkit mechanisms can be manipulated to impersonate genuine users and execute unauthorized operations.
In a statement, Qualys’s Saeed Abbasi emphasized the severity of these vulnerabilities, noting that they merge the distinction between a common user and a complete system takeover. He explained that attackers could exploit standard legitimate services like udisks and PAM/environment quirks, allowing anyone with an active GUI or SSH session to quickly gain root access. Importantly, he pointed out that these vulnerabilities require no specialized tools for exploitation, making them particularly concerning.
To mitigate the risks associated with these vulnerabilities, Abbasi recommends altering the polkit rule for ‘org.freedesktop.udisks2.modify-device’ by changing the allow_active setting from “yes” to “auth_admin”.
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