CVE-2026-90995 PUBLISHED

Sssd: sssd: local denial of service due to null pointer dereference in pam responder

Assigner: redhat
Reserved: 14.09.2026 Published: 14.09.2026 Updated: 14.09.2026

A flaw was found in SSSD (System Security Services Daemon). A local attacker with privileges to connect to the PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) responder socket can send a specially crafted protocol request. If the pam_app_services configuration is enabled and the service item is omitted from the request, a NULL pointer dereference can occur. This vulnerability leads to a denial of service, causing the PAM responder to crash and disrupt authentication services.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS Score: 5.5

Product Status

Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
Versions Default: affected
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Versions Default: unknown
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
Versions Default: affected
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Versions Default: affected
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Versions Default: affected
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4
Versions Default: affected
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4
Versions Default: affected

Workarounds

To mitigate this issue, avoid configuring pam_app_services in the [pam] section of /etc/sssd/sssd.conf if it is not operationally required. If pam_app_services is configured, remove or comment out the pam_app_services line and restart the sssd service.

Example: ```

<h1>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</h1>

[pam]

<h1>pam_app_services = app_svc</h1>

```

After modifying the configuration, restart the SSSD service: systemctl restart sssd

Note that restarting the SSSD service may temporarily interrupt authentication and authorization services.

Credits

  • This issue was discovered by Found by AISLE in partnership with Red Hat.

References

Problem Types

  • NULL Pointer Dereference CWE