CVE-2011-5054

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.9 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2012-01-06 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-287

Description

kcheckpass passes a user-supplied argument to the pam_start function, often within a setuid environment, which allows local users to invoke any configured PAM stack, and possibly trigger unintended side effects, via an arbitrary valid PAM service name, a different vulnerability than CVE-2011-4122. NOTE: the vendor indicates that the possibility of resultant privilege escalation may be "a bit far-fetched."

Affected products

KDE Kcheckpass: all versions

References

http://c-skills.blogspot.com/2011/11/openpam-trickery.html
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/12/07/3
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/12/08/9
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/12/23/8
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/12/27/1
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/12/27/3
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/12/28/5
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/01/02/10
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/01/02/11
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/72230
http://c-skills.blogspot.com/2011/11/openpam-trickery.html
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/12/07/3

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