GHSA-w6fv-6gcc-x825
Zincati allows unprivileged access to rpm-ostree D-Bus `Deploy()` and `FinalizeDeployment()` methods
Packages
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Impact
Zincati ships a polkit rule which allows the `zincati` system user to use the following actions:
- `org.projectatomic.rpmostree1.deploy`: used to deploy updates to the system
- `org.projectatomic.rpmostree1.finalize-deployment`: used to reboot the system into the deployed update
Since Zincati [v0.0.24](https://github.com/coreos/zincati/releases/tag/v0.0.24), this polkit rule contains a logic error which broadens access of those polkit actions to any unprivileged user rather than just the `zincati` system user.
In practice, this means that any unprivileged user with access to the system D-Bus socket is able to deploy older Fedora CoreOS versions (which may have other known vulnerabilities). Note that rpm-ostree enforces that the selected version must be from the same branch the system is currently on so this cannot directly be used to deploy an attacker-controlled update payload.
This primarily impacts users running untrusted workloads with access to the system D-Bus socket. Note that in general, untrusted workloads should not be given this access, whether containerized or not. By default, containers do not have access to the system D-Bus socket.
### Patches
The logic error is fixed in Zincati v0.0.30. The fix is included in the following FCOS releases:
- On the `stable` stream: 41.20250302.3.2
- On the `testing` stream: 41.20250315.2.0
- On the `next` stream: 42.20250316.1.0
### Workarounds
A workaround is to add the following polkit rule:
```javascript
polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
if (action.id == "org.projectatomic.rpmostree1.deploy" ||
action.id == "org.projectatomic.rpmostree1.finalize-deployment" ||
action.id == "org.projectatomic.rpmostree1.cleanup") {
if (subject.user != "zincati") {
return polkit.Result.NO;
}
}
});
```
to e.g. `/etc/polkit-1/rules.d/00-zincati-fix.rules` (it must sort earlier than `zincati.rules` lexicographically).
Note that this rule will deny all non-root users other than `zincati` from using those actions. If you've added polkit rules to allow e.g. the `core` user or other users, you will need to adjust the policy (or make sure the ordering is appropriate).
### References
This issue was introduced by [this commit](https://github.com/coreos/zincati/commit/28a43aa2c1edda091ba659677d73c13e6e3ea99d), and is fixed in [v0.0.30](https://github.com/coreos/zincati/releases/tag/v0.0.30).
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/coreos/zincati/security/advisories/GHSA-w6fv-6gcc-x825
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-27512
- https://github.com/coreos/zincati/commit/01d8e89f799e6ba21bdf7dc668abce23bd0d8f78
- https://github.com/coreos/zincati/commit/28a43aa2c1edda091ba659677d73c13e6e3ea99d
- https://github.com/coreos/zincati
- https://github.com/coreos/zincati/releases/tag/v0.0.24
- https://github.com/coreos/zincati/releases/tag/v0.0.30