VulnerabilityPublished 3 Jan 2024Updated 21 Nov 2025

CVE-2024-0217: Use After Free

Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 3.3 Low.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 10:12 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

3.3Low

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 13% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: Low

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 3 Jan 2024
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

AI-suggested

Monitor official PackageKitd repositories and Linux distribution security advisories for patches addressing CVE-2024-0217 and apply updates promptly once available.
Restrict local access to systems running PackageKitd 1.2.0 by enforcing strict user permissions and limiting administrative privileges to trusted personnel only.
Employ system integrity monitoring to detect abnormal crashes or behavior of PackageKitd that could indicate exploitation attempts.
Use containerization or sandboxing techniques for package management operations where feasible to isolate potential impacts.
Implement comprehensive logging and alerting for PackageKitd service failures to enable rapid response to denial of service incidents.
Consider disabling or replacing PackageKitd with alternative package management tools if immediate patching is not possible and operational risk is high.
Conduct regular security audits and vulnerability scans to identify outdated or vulnerable software components. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on access control, monitoring, and operational continuity specific to PackageKitd.

Description

A use-after-free flaw was found in PackageKitd. In some conditions, the order of cleanup mechanics for a transaction could be impacted. As a result, some memory access could occur on memory regions that were previously freed. Once freed, a memory region can be reused for other allocations and any previously stored data in this memory region is considered lost.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2024-0217 is on system availability. Exploiting this use-after-free vulnerability can cause PackageKitd to crash or behave unpredictably, potentially leading to denial of service conditions on affected systems. Since PackageKitd is involved in software package management, disruption could interfere with system updates and software installation processes, affecting system maintenance and security posture indirectly. However, the vulnerability does not compromise confidentiality or integrity, limiting the risk of data breaches or unauthorized modifications. The requirement for local privileges to exploit means that attackers must already have some level of access to the system, reducing the likelihood of remote exploitation. Organizations with many Linux endpoints running the vulnerable PackageKitd version may experience operational disruptions if exploited. The absence of known exploits in the wild and the low CVSS score suggest a limited immediate threat, but the potential for denial of service warrants attention, especially in environments where system stability is critical.

Summary

CVE-2024-0217 is a use-after-free vulnerability identified in PackageKitd version 1.2.0, a system service responsible for managing software package transactions on Linux-based systems. The flaw arises due to an improper order of cleanup operations during transaction handling, which can cause the system to access memory regions that have already been freed. Use-after-free vulnerabilities occur when a program continues to use pointers to memory after it has been released, potentially leading to undefined behavior such as crashes or memory corruption. In this case, the vulnerability does not appear to allow attackers to read or modify sensitive data, but it can cause availability issues by triggering application crashes or denial of service conditions. The vulnerability requires local privileges (AV:L) and low privileges (PR:L) to exploit, with no user interaction (UI:N) needed. The scope is unchanged (S:U), and the impact affects availability only (A:L), with no confidentiality (C:N) or integrity (I:N) impact. The CVSS v3.1 base score is 3.3, indicating a low severity level. There are no known exploits in the wild at this time, and no patches have been explicitly linked, though it is expected that maintainers will release fixes. The vulnerability was published on January 3, 2024, and assigned by Red Hat. PackageKitd is commonly used in many Linux distributions to facilitate package management, so affected systems are those running the vulnerable version 1.2.0. The vulnerability is primarily a stability and reliability concern rather than a direct security compromise.

References

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