CVE-2020-27780 describes a critical authentication bypass vulnerability in Linux-PAM versions prior to 1.5.1. This flaw allows an unauthenticated attacker to gain root access by attempting to log in as a non-existent user with an empty password. The vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (Critical) due to its network-based attack vector, low complexity, and complete compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Despite its severity, there is no evidence of active exploitation, publicly available exploit code, or significant community discussion surrounding this CVE.
| Vendor | Product | Version(s) | CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
>= 1.5.0, < 1.5.1CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:linux-pam:linux-pam:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
CVSS version used by this source: 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.3 Bluesky, 0.3 Mastodon, and 2.4 GitHub mentions.
No media coverage found for this CVE.
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.
A flaw was found in Linux-Pam in versions prior to 1.5.1 in the way it handle empty passwords for non-existing users. When the user doesn't exist PAM try to authenticate with root and in the case of an empty password it successfully authenticate.
Dec 8, 2020pam: authentication bypass when the user doesn't exist and root password is blank
Oct 27, 2020