CVE-2026-102568

Executive Summary

CVE-2026-102568 is an incorrect authorization vulnerability in Pardus Parental Control prior to version 0.7.0, residing in the polkit policy governing the parental control service. Any unprivileged local user can invoke the PPCActivator.py script with the --disable argument through pkexec, causing the application to disable all parental controls as root without authenticating. This grants the local user the effective ability to remove DNS filtering and application restrictions system-wide, resulting in a high-integrity, low-privilege escalation of control over device policy enforcement.

Technical Analysis

The vulnerability class is CWE-863 (Incorrect Authorization). The affected component is the polkit policy shipped with Pardus Parental Control, which governs whether a caller is permitted to perform privileged actions through the polkit authorization framework. According to the NVD description, the polkit policy fails to enforce a proper authorization check on the action that corresponds to invoking PPCActivator.py with the --disable argument. As a result, an unprivileged local user can use pkexec to run the activator as root and disable all parental control restrictions.

The attack surface is local and requires an existing low-privileged session on the target host (AV:L, PR:L). Because the action is executed as root via pkexec, the integrity impact is high (I:H): the disabling of DNS filtering and application limits affects system-wide policy enforcement. There is no direct confidentiality impact noted (C:N) and no availability impact noted (A:N) in the provided CVSS vector.

The specific defect is that the polkit policy does not restrict the disable action to an authorized administrator group or require authentication for the acting user. Instead, the policy appears to allow the action to proceed for local callers. The result is a privilege boundary violation: a non-privileged user causes a root-owned component to modify or remove parental control policy state. The NVD description explicitly names PPCActivator.py and the --disable argument, but does not provide further implementation detail such as policy file names, D-Bus action identifiers, or specific polkit rule syntax. No public proof-of-concept, exploit code, or Nuclei template is known at this time.

Exploitation Scenarios

No public PoC is available; the attack chain below is inferred from the vulnerability class and the explicit description provided.

1. Reconnaissance / Target Identification. The attacker obtains a low-privileged local shell on a system running Pardus Parental Control before 0.7.0. The attacker can identify the installed version through local package metadata or by inspecting the presence of the control component, including the PPCActivator.py script. No remote reconnaissance is required because the attack surface is local.

2. Triggering the authorization flaw. The attacker invokes pkexec to execute PPCActivator.py with the --disable argument. Because the polkit policy does not correctly authorize the action, the request is not blocked for an unprivileged caller. Per the NVD description, this results in the parental control features being disabled "as root" without authentication.

3. Execution method at the vulnerability-class level. The exploitation mechanism is abuse of a privileged execution helper (pkexec) combined with an incorrectly configured polkit policy. The attacker does not need to supply a crafted payload, exploit memory corruption, or perform any injection. The vulnerable authorization decision itself allows the legitimate administrative action (--disable) to be performed by an unauthorized local user. This is a textbook incorrect-authorization issue: the system trusts a local caller to perform a privileged state change without validating that the caller is entitled to do so.

4. Post-exploitation impact. Once the disable action succeeds as root, all parental control restrictions are removed. According to the NVD description, this includes DNS filtering and application limits. The practical result is that the local user can bypass content filtering, unblock network destinations otherwise restricted by the parental control DNS layer, and run applications that were previously blocked. The action does not, based on the disclosed information, grant a root shell or arbitrary code execution beyond the intended function of PPCActivator.py; it modifies the enforcement state of the parental control service. The integrity impact is high, and the change persists until the parental control configuration is restored or the service is reconfigured by an authorized administrator.

Impact Assessment

The CVSS v3.1 base score is 5.5 (Medium) with vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N. The subscores show:

• Attack Vector (Local): exploitation requires local access to the vulnerable host.
• Attack Complexity (Low): no special conditions beyond local invocation of the named script and argument.
• Privileges Required (Low): the attacker needs only an unprivileged local user account.
• User Interaction (None): no victim action is required.
• Scope (Unchanged): the security authority of the vulnerable component is not considered to cross a boundary in the score, though the effect is administrative control over the parental control policy.
• Confidentiality (None): no direct data disclosure is attributed to the flaw.
• Integrity (High): the flaw removes restrictions system-wide.
• Availability (None): no denial of service is attributed.

Business impact centers on loss of policy enforcement on managed endpoints that rely on Pardus Parental Control. Affected systems are local Pardus installations using the parental control component below 0.7.0. The blast radius is the individual host where the low-privileged user operates: DNS filtering and application limits configured by a parent or administrator cease to apply. In environments where parental controls form part of a compliance or acceptable-use control set, this constitutes a control failure rather than a network-wide compromise. Because the action executes as root, the change is authoritative at the system level and cannot be overridden by a non-privileged user.

Detection Guidance

Sigma Rule

title: Possible Pardus Parental Control Authorization Bypass via pkexec
id: 9f2c7a1e-3b4d-4e6f-9a10-5c8d2e7f1b3a
status: experimental
description: Detects execution of PPCActivator.py with the --disable argument via pkexec, consistent with CVE-2026-102568
references:
  - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-102568
author: Valters IT
date: 2026/01/01
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: linux
detection:
  selection_img:
    Image|endswith:
      - '/pkexec'
  selection_cmd:
    CommandLine|contains|all:
      - 'PPCActivator.py'
      - '--disable'
  condition: selection_img and selection_cmd
falsepositives:
  - Legitimate administrative action performed by an authorized parent or administrator account
level: high
tags:
  - attack.privilege_escalation
  - attack.t1548

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2026_102568_Pardus_Parental_Control_Authz_Bypass
{
    meta:
        author = "Valters IT"
        description = "Detects references to PPCActivator.py --disable invocation associated with CVE-2026-102568"
        reference = "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-102568"
        date = "2026-01-01"
        severity = "medium"

    strings:
        $s1 = "PPCActivator.py" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "--disable" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "pkexec" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "parental" ascii wide nocase

    condition:
        filesize < 5MB and
        (
            (any of ($s1) and any of ($s2)) or
            (any of ($s1) and any of ($s3)) or
            (any of ($s1) and any of ($s4))
        )
}

Suricata IDS Rule

alert tcp any any -> any any (msg:"CVE-2026-102568 Possible Pardus Parental Control Authorization Bypass Reference"; flow:to_server,established; content:"PPCActivator.py"; nocase; content:"--disable"; nocase; distance:0; classtype:attempted-admin; reference:cve,2026-102568; sid:2026102568; rev:1;)

Note: This vulnerability is local, so network detection is limited. The rule above is a best-effort heuristic for any network artifact containing the script name and argument and should not be relied on as a primary detection mechanism.

Elastic Detection

process where event.type == "start" and
process.name == "pkexec" and
process.args : "PPCActivator.py" and
process.args : "--disable"

Splunk SPL Query

index=linux sourcetype=linux_audit OR sourcetype=sysmon_linux
(process_name="pkexec" OR exe="/usr/bin/pkexec")
CommandLine="*PPCActivator.py*" CommandLine="*--disable*"
| table _time host user CommandLine process_name

Wazuh OSSEC Rule

<group name="linux,privilege_escalation,">
  <rule id="2026105" level="12">
    <if_sid>80700</if_sid>
    <field name="command">pkexec</field>
    <field name="command">PPCActivator.py</field>
    <field name="command">--disable</field>
    <description>CVE-2026-102568: Possible Pardus Parental Control authorization bypass via pkexec PPCActivator.py --disable</description>
    <mitre>
      <id>T1548</id>
    </mitre>
  </rule>
</group>

Mitigation & Patch Guidance

Patch confidence: 0/4 (UNPATCHED — no patch evidence from any tracked source). No vendor fix, workaround, or affected version list is currently available from the tracked sources.

1. Immediate mitigations.

   • Restrict local login and physical access to systems where Pardus Parental Control is used, since the flaw requires a local unprivileged user session.
   • Audit the polkit policy that authorizes PPCActivator.py actions and, where feasible, tighten or disable the policy action for the --disable argument until a vendor patch is available. This should be done carefully by an administrator, as incorrectly removing the policy may break legitimate parental control management.
   • Monitor endpoints for pkexec invocations containing PPCActivator.py and --disable, as described in the detection rules above.

2. Patch / upgrade steps.

   • Upgrade to Pardus Parental Control 0.7.0 or later once a vendor release is available and confirmed to fix the polkit authorization check.
   • Since no patch source is currently tracked, verify the fix directly with the Pardus project before relying on any version claim.

3. Long-term hardening.

   • Apply the principle of least privilege to polkit actions: require administrator authentication for parent control disable operations rather than allowing local invocation.
   • Enforce role-based local user administration so that only authorized parent or administrator accounts can modify parental control state.
   • Integrate local privilege escalation monitoring for polkit/pkexec abuse patterns into the SOC detection pipeline.

References

• NVD — CVE-2026-102568: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-102568
• CWE-863 — Incorrect Authorization: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/863.html
• MITRE ATT&CK T1548 — Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1548/
• Pardus project / Pardus Parental Control (vendor product page) — verify current version and advisories directly from the Pardus project
• FIRST EPSS: not yet scored for this CVE as of the data provided; CISA KEV: not listed.

No known threat actor campaigns or exploit-in-the-wild evidence have been identified for CVE-2026-102568 based on the provided intelligence. No public PoC, exploit code, or Nuclei template is available.