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.
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, 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.
Title pam_usb: Uncontrolled search path in pam_usb tools allows privilege escalation via PATH manipulation
Weaknesses CWE-427
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N'}


cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-05-27T20:02:38.484Z

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

Link: CVE-2026-47274

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-05-27T20:16:40.013

Modified: 2026-05-27T20:16:40.013

Link: CVE-2026-47274

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.