Pam-config: lpe from unprivileged to allow_active in pam (pam)

CVE-2025-6018
HIGH 7.8

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 1.10 % · percentile 66 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
redhat
NVD status
Modified

Description

A Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) vulnerability has been discovered in pam-config within Linux Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM). This flaw allows an unprivileged local attacker (for example, a user logged in via SSH) to obtain the elevated privileges normally reserved for a physically present, "allow_active" user. The highest risk is that the attacker can then perform all allow_active yes Polkit actions, which are typically restricted to console users, potentially gaining unauthorized control over system configurations, services, or other sensitive operations.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-863 — Incorrect Authorization

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.8CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:Hredhat
CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.8CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HNVD · secalert@redhat.com (Secondary)

European references

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
pamaffected 0 < 1.1.8-24.71.1
Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD