CVE-2022-24756: Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime in Bareos Director

Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2022-03-15 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-401

Description

Bareos is open source software for backup, archiving, and recovery of data for operating systems. When Bareos Director >= 18.2 but prior to 21.1.0, 20.0.6, and 19.2.12 is built and configured for PAM authentication, a failed PAM authentication will leak a small amount of memory. An attacker that is able to use the PAM Console (i.e. by knowing the shared secret or via the WebUI) can flood the Director with failing login attempts which will eventually lead to an out-of-memory condition in which the Director will not work anymore. Bareos Director versions 21.1.0, 20.0.6 and 19.2.12 contain a Bugfix for this problem. Users who are unable to upgrade may disable PAM authentication as a workaround.

Affected products

bareos: from 18.2 before 19.2.12; from 20.0.0 before 20.0.6; from 21.0.0 before 21.1.0 — fixed in 19.2.12, 20.0.6, 21.1.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: bareos 19.2.12, 20.0.6, 21.1.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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