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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.4

CVE-2008-1946 json

The default configuration of su in /etc/pam.d/su in GNU coreutils 5.2.1 allows local users to gain the privileges of a (1) locked or (2) ex…

published 2008-07-28 18 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2008-1945

cvss
4.4
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 24%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The default configuration of su in /etc/pam.d/su in GNU coreutils 5.2.1 allows local users to gain the privileges of a (1) locked or (2) expired account by entering the account name on the command line, related to improper use of the pam_succeed_if.so module.

Patch / fix

  • coreutils Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.93-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2008-1946

  • coreutils RHEL 4 5.2.1-31.8.el4

red hat advisories RHSA-2008:0780

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2008-1946 updated

/etc/pam.d/su is wrong in RHEL-4.6

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 coreutils 5.2.1-31.8.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 coreutils 5.2.1-31.8.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 coreutils 5.2.1-31.8.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 coreutils 5.2.1-31.8.el4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2008:0780

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.31% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 24% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 4.4 AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.