# [HIGH] Analyzing the PwnKit local privilege escalation exploit

**Source:** Snyk
**Published:** 2022-01-29
**Article:** https://snyk.io/blog/pwnkit-linux-exploit-cve-2021-4034/

## Threat Profile

Snyk Blog In this article
Written by Kyle Suero 
Matt Jarvis 
January 29, 2022
0 mins read What do Linux vulnerabilities and natural disasters have in common? Something seemingly dormant can suddenly spring to life, exposing activity beneath the surface. Several days ago, a security researcher published a high-severity vulnerability named PwnKit that impacts most major Linux distributions . The scary part? It has existed since May of 2009.
Polkit is a component for controlling privileges in Unix…

## Indicators of Compromise (high-fidelity only)

- **CVE:** `CVE-2021-4034`

## MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

- **T1190** — Exploit Public-Facing Application

## Kill chain phases observed

_(none detected from narrative keywords)_

## Recommended hunts

### IOC-driven hunts (use shared templates)

These are standard IOC-substitution hunts — the canonical SPL and KQL live once in [`_TEMPLATES.md`](../_TEMPLATES.md), so we don't repeat the same boilerplate on every CVE / hash / network-IOC briefing.

- **Asset exposure — vulnerability matches article CVE(s)** ([template](../_TEMPLATES.md#asset-exposure)) — phase: **recon**, confidence: **High**
  - CVE(s): `CVE-2021-4034`


## Why this matters

Severity classified as **HIGH** based on: CVE present, 1 use case(s) fired, 1 technique(s) inferred. Read the full article for actor attribution, tooling details, and any defanged IOCs in the body that aren't visible in the RSS summary.