CVE-2010-3853

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.9 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2011-01-24 · updated 2026-06-16

Description

pam_namespace.c in the pam_namespace module in Linux-PAM (aka pam) before 1.1.3 uses the environment of the invoking application or service during execution of the namespace.init script, which might allow local users to gain privileges by running a setuid program that relies on the pam_namespace PAM check, as demonstrated by the sudo program.

Affected products

Linux-PAM: through 1.1.2; 0.99.1.0, 0.99.2.0, 0.99.2.1, 0.99.3.0, 0.99.4.0, 0.99.5.0 (+17)

References

http://lists.vmware.com/pipermail/security-announce/2011/000126.html
http://pam.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/pam/Linux-PAM/modules/pam_namespace/pam_namespace.c?view=log#rev1.13
http://secunia.com/advisories/49711
http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-201206-31.xml
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2010:220
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2010-0819.html
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2010-0891.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/516909/100/0/threaded
http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2011-0004.html
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2011/0606
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=643043
http://lists.vmware.com/pipermail/security-announce/2011/000126.html

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