Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 7.1

CVE-2026-47272 json

pam_usb: OTP pad authentication bypass via missing system pad check and uninitialized RNG buffer

published 2026-05-27 5 mo ago modified 2026-10-26 14 d ago also EUVD-2026-32653

cvss
7.1
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 1%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. Prior to 0.9.0, the pusb_pad_compare() function in src/pad.c only verified that the user-side pad (~/.pamusb/device.pad) could be read, but did not enforce that the system-side pad (the pad file on the USB device) was also present and readable. If the user-side pad was deleted or unreadable, the function returned a failure that was treated as non-fatal in certain code paths, allowing authentication to succeed without the USB device being verified. A local user can delete their own ~/.pamusb/device.pad to remove the USB device requirement and authenticate without the physical device. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.9.0.

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
5 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.12% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 1% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Affected products

  • mcdope pam_usb

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-287 Improper Authentication
  • CWE-908 Use of Uninitialized Resource

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.