Description
pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. Prior to 0.9.1, when a PAM service is configured with deny_remote=false in pam_usb (commonly done for display managers such as gdm-password or lightdm to bypass process/TTY heuristics for local sessions), the PAM_RHOST check in pusb_do_auth() is also skipped. PAM_RHOST is set by remote daemons (sshd, XDMCP servers) to identify the remote client address. Because the check is gated inside if (opts.deny_remote), a genuine remote XDMCP connection reaches the USB device authentication step instead of being rejected. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.9.1.
References3
Metrics
- CVSS 3.1
-
8.1
HIGH
Score source: CNA
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H - EPSS — exploit probability
- 0% percentile: 28 · as of 15 November 2026
- CWE
- CWE-863
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