CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-6018 — A Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) vulnerability has been discovered in pam-config within Linux Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)

High CVSS 7.8

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.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.8 (3.1)
Published
2025-07-23
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-863

Affected products

  • suse / pam-config / 1.1.8-24.71.1

Matched remediation archetype

Authorization bypass, IDOR, and cross-tenant access

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

Check exposure

  • Map object and action authorization checks across API, UI, batch, import/export, and background-job paths.
  • Identify tenant, ownership, role, and policy boundaries for affected resources and administrative operations.
  • Use synthetic fixtures to compare intended access matrices without accessing another user's real data.

Remediate safely

  • Enforce server-side authorization at each resource access and state transition using the authenticated principal and trusted tenant context.
  • Scope data queries by tenant and ownership; treat client-supplied identifiers, roles, and policy claims as untrusted.
  • Add deny-by-default policy tests for horizontal and vertical access across every affected transport.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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