CVE-2026-47274 PUBLISHED

pam_usb: Uncontrolled search path in pam_usb tools allows privilege escalation via PATH manipulation

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 18.05.2026 Published: 27.05.2026 Updated: 27.05.2026

pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. Prior to 0.9.0, multiple pam_usb helper tools resolved external binaries through the PATH environment variable rather than using absolute paths. An attacker who can influence the process environment during PAM authentication or tool execution could substitute malicious binaries. The affected tools are pamusb-check (src/tmux.c), pamusb-conf (tools/pamusb-conf), and pamusb-keyring-unlock-gnome (tools/pamusb-keyring-unlock-gnome). This vulnerability is fixed in 0.9.0.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
CVSS Score: 6.3

Product Status

Vendor mcdope
Product pam_usb
Versions
  • Version < 0.9.0 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-427: Uncontrolled Search Path Element CWE