CVE-2026-54411
Essential information
- Published
- 14/06/2026 20:17
- Modified
- 14/06/2026 18:17
- Author
- The MITRE Corporation
- Creator
- The MITRE Corporation
- CVSS
- 5.9 MEDIUM (v3.1) 8.2 HIGH (v4.0)
- CISA KEV
- No
- CWE
- CWE-208
- CVSS vector
-
—
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:NCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CVSS metrics
- Access vector
- —
- Access complexity
- —
- Authentication
- —
- Confidentiality impact
- —
- Integrity impact
- —
- Availability impact
- —
- Exploitability
- —
- Remediation level
- —
- Report confidence
- —
- Temporal score
- —
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- High
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality impact
- High
- Integrity impact
- None
- Availability impact
- None
- Exploit code maturity
- —
- Remediation level
- —
- Report confidence
- —
- Temporal score
- —
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- High
- Attack requirements
- Present
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Confidentiality (V)
- High
- Confidentiality (S)
- None
- Integrity (V)
- None
- Integrity (S)
- None
- Availability (V)
- None
- Availability (S)
- None
- Exploit maturity
- PROOF_OF_CONCEPT
Description
Linux-PAM through 1.7.2 contains an observable timing discrepancy (CWE-208) in the pam_userdb module's plaintext-password comparison path in modules/pam_userdb/pam_userdb.c that allows a local or network-adjacent attacker able to repeatedly drive authentication through a calling service to recover the plaintext password of a target account by measuring response-timing differences. The comparison uses strncmp() (or strncasecmp() when PAM_ICASE_ARG is set) preceded by a length-equality check, so the time to reject a candidate depends on the index of the first differing byte and on whether the candidate's length matches the stored password, leaking the password length and individual prefix bytes. The vulnerable path is reached when the administrator configures pam_userdb with crypt=none, with an unrecognized crypt method, or without a crypt= argument, causing the module to store and compare credentials in plaintext.
NVD status
- Status
- Received — CVE has been recently published to the CVE List and has been received by the NVD.
- Source
- 309f9ea4-e3e9-4c6c-b79d-e8eb01244f2c
- NVD
- View on NVD
Affected products (CPE)
| Product | CPE |
|---|---|
| linux / linux-pam | cpe:2.3:a:linux:linux-pam:1.7.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |