pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. Prior to 0.9.0, the pusb_pad_compare() function in src/pad.c only verified that the user-side pad (~/.pamusb/device.pad) could be read, but did not enforce that the system-side pad (the pad file on the USB device) was also present and readable. If the user-side pad was deleted or unreadable, the function returned a failure that was treated as non-fatal in certain code paths, allowing authentication to succeed without the USB device being verified. A local user can delete their own ~/.pamusb/device.pad to remove the USB device requirement and authenticate without the physical device. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.9.0.
History

Wed, 27 May 2026 20:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. Prior to 0.9.0, the pusb_pad_compare() function in src/pad.c only verified that the user-side pad (~/.pamusb/device.pad) could be read, but did not enforce that the system-side pad (the pad file on the USB device) was also present and readable. If the user-side pad was deleted or unreadable, the function returned a failure that was treated as non-fatal in certain code paths, allowing authentication to succeed without the USB device being verified. A local user can delete their own ~/.pamusb/device.pad to remove the USB device requirement and authenticate without the physical device. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.9.0.
Title pam_usb: OTP pad authentication bypass via missing system pad check and uninitialized RNG buffer
Weaknesses CWE-287
CWE-908
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.1, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N'}


cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-05-27T20:06:15.388Z

Reserved: 2026-05-18T23:03:37.230Z

Link: CVE-2026-47272

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-05-27T20:16:39.747

Modified: 2026-05-27T20:16:39.747

Link: CVE-2026-47272

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.