CVSS VectorNVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionNVD
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.
AnalysisAI
Authentication bypass in pam_usb before 0.9.1 allows remote unauthenticated attackers to reach the USB hardware-authentication step over XDMCP when an administrator has set deny_remote=false - a common tweak for display managers like gdm-password or lightdm. Because the PAM_RHOST remote-client check is gated inside the same deny_remote conditional, disabling deny_remote inadvertently disables the safeguard that rejects remote connections, so a genuine remote XDMCP session is treated like a local one. …
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RemediationAI
Within 24 hours: audit all systems running pam_usb to identify instances with deny_remote=false; immediately re-enable deny_remote=true or disable XDMCP if remote display access is not required. Within 7 days: complete remediation across all affected systems and implement network-level access controls restricting XDMCP to trusted networks only. …
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EUVD-2026-32650