CVE-2026-48983

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:H/I:L/A:L

CVSS v4 NEW

—

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, a symlink race condition exists in per-device and per-user pad directory creation. pam_usb uses a check-then-act pattern: it calls lstat() to test for existence and then calls mkdir() separately to create the directory. A local attacker can win the race between these calls by replacing the target path with a symlink to a directory they control. If successful, one-time pad files may be written to an attacker-controlled location, potentially exposing future pad values before use or disrupting authentication. 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-367

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

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