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Improper Authentication

CVE-2011-5054

Medium
6.9/10

Summary

kcheckpass passes a user-supplied argument to the pam_start function, often within a setuid environment, which allows local users to invoke any configured PAM stack, and possibly trigger unintended side effects, via an arbitrary valid PAM service name, a different vulnerability than CVE-2011-4122. NOTE: the vendor indicates that the possibility of resultant privilege escalation may be "a bit far-fetched."

  • MEDIUM
  • LOCAL
  • NONE
  • COMPLETE
  • COMPLETE
  • COMPLETE

CWE-287 - Improper Authentication

Improper (or broken) authentication attacks are widespread, and have accounted for many of the worst data breaches in recent years. Improper authentication attacks are a class of vulnerabilities where an attacker impersonates a legitimate user by exploiting weaknesses in either session management or credential management to gain access to the user’s account. This can result in disclosure of sensitive information, and can lead to system compromise, theft, identity theft, and fraud.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published