CVE-2026-48065

pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. Prior to 0.9.1, src/conf.c allocates heap memory proportional to n_devices, a count derived from libxml2 XPath evaluation of the config file, without first enforcing an upper bound. On 32-bit targets (armv7l, i686 -- both listed in the project Makefile), the multiplication n_devices * sizeof(t_pusb_device) wraps around size_t, causing xmalloc() to receive a very small size. Because xmalloc() only calls abort() on NULL return, a small-but-non-NULL allocation is accepted, and subsequent array writes overflow the heap. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.9.1.

CVSS 3.1

6.7CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS

0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days; higher than 4% of CVEs (scores of 2026-10-25)

CWEs

CWE-122, CWE-190

Published

2026-05-27

Modified

2026-10-26

Record from

the NVD, synced 2026-10-26

References

• https://github.com/mcdope/pam_usb/issues/352
• https://github.com/mcdope/pam_usb/issues/55
• https://github.com/mcdope/pam_usb/security/advisories/GHSA-24mw-m2vf-36vp

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