CVE-2026-48982

medium

Published 2026-06-18 · Modified 2026-06-18

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CVSS v3

5.8

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

CVSS v4 NEW

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not yet in upstream

VIR risk

5.8

Description

pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. In versions prior to 0.9.2, when updating a one-time pad file, a temporary file is created using open() without the O_EXCL flag. Without O_EXCL, the create operation is not atomic: two concurrent processes racing to update the same pad may both succeed in opening the file, with the second write silently overwriting the first. The one-time pad is the core replay-prevention mechanism of pam_usb. A successful race could result in the stored pad value diverging from what either process expected, potentially causing authentication failures or, in a precisely timed attack, creating a window for pad reuse. This issue has been fixed in version 0.9.2.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

58%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

References

CWEs

CWE-362

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.