CVE-2025-6018

high

Description

A Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) vulnerability has been discovered in pam-config within Linux Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM). This flaw allows an unprivileged local attacker (for example, a user logged in via SSH) to obtain the elevated privileges normally reserved for a physically present, "allow_active" user. The highest risk is that the attacker can then perform all allow_active yes Polkit actions, which are typically restricted to console users, potentially gaining unauthorized control over system configurations, services, or other sensitive operations.

References

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/linux-flaws-allowing-root-access/

https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1243226

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2372693

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-6018

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2025-07-23

Updated: 2025-07-25

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 6.8

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C

Severity: Medium

CVSS v3

Base Score: 7.8

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Severity: High

EPSS

EPSS: 0.00028