pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. Prior to 0.9.0, pam_usb is a PAM module loaded into the host process (sudo, login, GDM, GNOME Shell). Display managers such as GDM run multiple concurrent authentication threads. Three functions used by the deny_remote feature called the non-reentrant strtok(), which stores state in a single global pointer. If two authentications race, one thread's strtok() call can overwrite the other's in-progress tokenisation pointer, causing incorrect parsing of the tmux session data or the /proc environ scan that backs the remote-session detection logic. Additionally, pusb_tmux_get_client_tty() passed the raw pointer returned by getenv(TMUX) directly to strtok(). getenv() returns a pointer into the live process environment block; strtok() inserts NUL bytes into that block, permanently corrupting the TMUX variable for subsequent code running in the same process. In long-lived display managers this affects all future authentications in that process. The combined effect can cause deny_remote=true to return an incorrect decision for a remote session, or an incorrect decision for a local session, depending on thread interleaving. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.9.0.
| Métrique | Valeur | Interprétation |
|---|---|---|
|
AV (Vecteur d'Attaque)
Attack Vector
|
Local (L)
|
Exploit nécessite un accès local au système |
|
AC (Complexité d'Attaque)
Attack Complexity
|
High (H)
|
Conditions spécifiques doivent être réunies pour exploiter |
|
PR (Privilèges Requis)
Privileges Required
|
Low (L)
|
Authentifié avec compte utilisateur basique |
|
UI (Interaction Utilisateur)
User Interaction
|
None (N)
|
Aucune interaction utilisateur nécessaire |
|
S (Périmètre)
Scope
|
Unchanged (U)
|
Impact reste dans le périmètre du composant compromis |
|
C (Impact Confidentialité)
Confidentiality Impact
|
High (H)
|
Divulgation totale d'informations |
|
I (Impact Intégrité)
Integrity Impact
|
High (H)
|
Modification totale des données possible |
|
A (Impact Disponibilité)
Availability Impact
|
None (N)
|
Aucune interruption de service |
pam_usb: strtok() race condition in multi-threaded PAM hosts can corrupt deny_remote result