CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-23013 — In Yubico pam-u2f before 1.3.1, local privilege escalation can sometimes occur

High CVSS 7.3

In Yubico pam-u2f before 1.3.1, local privilege escalation can sometimes occur. This product implements a Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) that can be deployed to support authentication using a YubiKey or other FIDO compliant authenticators on macOS or Linux. This software package has an issue that allows for an authentication bypass in some configurations. An attacker would require the ability to access the system as an unprivileged user. Depending on the configuration, the attacker may also need to know the user's password.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.3 (4.0)
Published
2025-01-15
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-394

Affected products

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Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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